


For a Friend (aka Civil War)

by Kizmet



Series: What If [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child!Wanda Maximoff, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Lives, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Politics, good communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-05 03:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15855537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizmet/pseuds/Kizmet
Summary: The Accords aren't the issue, everyone knows that (they aren't even called the Sokovia Accords here, it's the  United Nations Convention on the Rights and Responsibilities of the Enhanced).The problem is balancing what's good for James Buchanan Barnes against what's good for the world.  And after failing to save his best friend from falling in '44 Steve Rogers is anything but balanced on the subject.





	1. Making Amends, Making Mistakes

Wanda bit her lip in concentration as she tried to use her powers to sort out the tangled mass of I-beams left behind when the Hulk and Hulkbuster armor had crashed through the Johannesburg construction site a year earlier. Tony had purchased the property during the fight to mitigate the fallout from trashing it and now, a year later, it had been decided that the site would be used as the home of a new Enhanced Outreach center.

“Watch what you’re lifting it over,” May stated critically. “You have to think about what you’d be dropping it on if something goes wrong. Especially when you’re testing your limits.” 

Wanda nodded without taking her eyes off of the load she was lifting. 

Pietro dashed around the perimeter of the site, in his wake the smaller debris simply seemed to vanish only to reappear into a rapidly filling dumpster. Sam kept an eye on Pietro’s progress while scouting the site from the air, looking for more other opportunities for the fifteen year old twins to exercise their powers. 

A quinjet landed in an already cleared quadrant of the site and Steve Rogers walked down the ramp. 

“Stay aware of your surroundings,” May reiterated to Wanda then walked over to meet Steve. “Thanks for coming on such short notice,” she said. “The South African government won’t approve the twins in their territory without each of them having a minder and most of the team is tied up with the UN summit.”

“It’s no problem,” Steve replied. “This is a big step for the twins, the first time they’ve been able to use their powers out in the world in a positive way. I’m happy to be a part of it. Besides, I might not have gotten a full debrief on the situation but it’s your husband, I get that you have to be there for him.”

“Ex,” May corrected. “But you’re right. He needs me and I’m going to be there.”

Steve nodded.

“Keep reminding Wanda to maintain situational awareness. The tunnel vision noted in training didn’t just go away because we’re in the real world,” May said as she unlocked a slim cuff from her wrist, the anchor for the electronic tether Wanda wore, and passed it to Steve. “And really, thanks for coming so quickly.” Then she jogged up the ramp. The quinjet rose from the ground a few moments later and blasted away with considerable more urgency and flare than the autopilot that had brought Steve there.

The next few days passed quickly. With the four of them working as a team the rubble from the previous project melted away. 

“I hope Stark has contractors standing by because we are way ahead of schedule,” Sam joked.

“Don’t remind us that we’re working for _him_ ,” Pietro huffed.

The good humor vanished from Sam’s face, “I know Stark’s tied to a huge trauma for you,” he said. “But you have to recognize that if this wasn’t an SI property you wouldn’t be here. Stark’s willing to create opportunities for you two to prove that you can be a constructive part of society. Not many people would.”

“He owes us,” Wanda muttered.

“Think about where you’re standing,” Sam reproved her. “What happened to the two of you was a horrible tragedy but the reality is Tony Stark only has a tentative connection to your parents deaths. If Stark owes you… A living? A job? A free ride? …Because he manufactured that missile. If that’s the case, what do you owe the people of Johannesburg? There were more than a few of them who lost family, who were trapped in collapsed buildings within feet of where we’re standing, because you chose to help Ultron try to wipe out humanity.” 

“We didn’t _know_ Ultron wanted to kill everyone!” Wanda protested. Pietro pressed his shoulder against hers in support but he couldn’t meet Sam’s eyes.

“No,” Sam let a little bite creep into his voice, “You signed on with Ultron because he told you he’d help you kill Tony Stark. He just neglected to clarify that he meant he’d kill Tony Stark... and everyone else. You’re young but... You joined a terrorist organization. You allowed them to perform experiments on you. You signed on with Ultron. You’ve been with us for a year, if you won’t own your choices, your actions? Then you’re wasting everyone’s time and the second chance we’re trying to give you.”

“I know we were wrong, that trying to kill Stark was wrong,” Wanda said. “But I still hate him. He got rich making missiles and my parents died because of one of them.”

“And because there was a war going on. There were multiple factions in your country and international interests who were much more directly involved in where that missile ended up than Tony Stark. HYDRA was involved with some of those factions and you joined them. You chose to work with people who are closer to those who pulled the trigger on that missile than Stark was,” Sam pointed out. “Let’s call it a day. I think a little time to reflect, in your hotel rooms is more appropriate than a few more hours flexing your muscles here.” 

Steve watched the twins standing there huddled together after Sam walked off to get their truck. “You’ve come a long ways toward mastering your powers,” he said awkwardly. “That was all Sam was trying to say when he mentioned being ahead of schedule. I- I don’t know how it turned into… that.”

The next morning while the four of them were having breakfast in the hotel’s lobby a blonde woman walked over and joined them as if she were one of the party. Steve did a double take. “Natasha?” he asked, not entirely sure of what he was seeing. In addition to blonde hair there were other, small changes her appearance that made him doubt his eyes. That and the fact she was supposedly in prison. “But I thought-”

Natasha smirked. “I was right, they did need me. They just had to save face.”

“So, you’re not an escaped convict or anything?” Sam asked warily.

“Nope. Call it community service if it makes you feel better. I’m back with S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Natasha replied. She turned to Steve, “I’ve been tracking HYDRA… And I found a lead on one Bucky Barnes, if you’re interested.”

“You found Bucky?” Steve exclaimed grabbing her arm and leaning across the table. “Where is he? Is he okay? Are they after him?”

“Nothing that concrete. I’ve got something going down in Lagos and rumor says the Winter Soldier is involved… Course there have also been other rumors that he hit a few hotspots once news started leaking about the SHIELDRA debacle,” Natasha shrugged.

“Lagos?” Steve asked. 

“I was sent to investigate rumors about HYDRA activity in the area but things are moving more quickly than anticipated. It’s going down tomorrow. Your team was already on the continent and when I caught wind it might be Barnes… Maybe it’s just fate that you were here Steve,” Natasha suggested.

“You made a good call,” Steve assured her. “Do you have transport? Ours left with Agent May.”

“Wait a minute,” Sam protested. “Wanda and Pietro are minors, even if they weren’t on probation they’d never get approved for a mission.”

“There’s no time,” Natasha argued. “HYDRA is moving, if the rumors can be believed they have the Winter Soldier back-” 

“We’re going,” Steve said. He turned to Sam. “Bucky’s a good man, he doesn’t deserve what HYDRA did to him, is doing to him. No one does.”

“You saw the sort of damage he’s capable of while under their control in D.C.,” Natasha added. 

“Yeah! And I remember him handing all three of us our asses,” Sam protested. “I’m calling Rhodes.”

“I’m here because the regular Avengers are tied up with UN red tape,” Steve argued. “Besides we have Wanda, with her powers it will be simple to extract Bucky. We can get him the help he needs, we can save him.” He didn’t say ‘Like you failed to save Riley,’ he didn’t have to. 

Sam rubbed his temples.

“We don’t have much time if we’re going to get to Lagos before the shooting starts,” Natasha pushed.

“Wanda uses her teke to contain Sergeant Barnes. Beyond that, she and Pietro stay out of it,” Sam insisted. “The three of us will have to be enough to deal with the rest of the HYDRA team. Are we enough?” he asked Natasha pointedly.

“Typically the Winter Soldier is sent with a handler and few goons,” Natasha assured him. “It won’t be a problem.”

“No matter what I decide I’m going to have regrets,” Sam said reluctantly. “But- Barnes, he’s one of ours. Leaving him in enemy hands, I can’t stomach that. I’m in.”

* * *

Thirty-two hours later Steve, Sam, Wanda and Pietro stood at attention in the center of the bullet scared courtyard of the Lagos CDC compound. Several dozen body bags were lined up against the wall behind them. In the distance smoke could be seen rising from the bombed-out apartment building that had been home to a fledgling Wakandan outreach program. 

Colonel Rhodes frowned silently at them, War Machine’s helmet tucked beneath his arm.

The twins broke first. “We were only trying to help!” Wanda exclaimed, her lower lip quivering.

“I stopped them from releasing a bio weapon in the middle of the market,” Pietro added. “And Wanda tried to contain the bomb, she didn’t set it off! It was that man, Rumlow.”

“I didn’t know what to do with it when I realized I wasn’t strong enough to contain it,” Wanda said as new tears began to streak her dusty face. “I didn’t- My shield was breaking. I tried to get it above the crowd,” she nodded towards Steve. “Like he did with the grenade stuck to his shield. But then the building was right there and I tried to grab it, the explosion, again but I couldn’t.” She started sobbing, “I didn’t mean for anyone to die.”

“I’m still waiting to hear what the fuck you were doing here, on the wrong end of a continent that doesn’t particularly like you in the first place,” Rhodes snapped.

Steve stepped forward, subtly putting himself between Wanda and Rhodes. “We got word of a HYDRA operation. We couldn’t just stand by.” He hesitated before adding. “I thought it was Bucky. I thought we could bring him in without anyone getting hurt.”

Rhodes cocked a dubious eyebrow. “Yeah, that worked so well in D.C. …When he shot you.”

“He didn’t let me drown,” Steve protested. “And It’s not Bucky’s fault, what HYDRA did to him. But you add in the boogeyman stories about the Winter Soldier? I didn’t want to risk involving anyone who’d get nervous and shoot first.”

“So you brought in a fifteen year old telekinetic- Who, based on past events, has the judgement of a rabid sheep. -to help you capture him,” Rhodes said judgmentally. As Wanda and Pietro tried to will the ground to swallow them Rhodes turned to Sam, “And don’t think logging a few protests gets you off the hook Wilson. When it comes to a clusterfuck like this one, saying ‘I don’t think this is a good idea’ then going along anyway is NOT enough.”

“Yes Sir,” Wilson accepted the rebuke.

“Now, you want to tell me where you ‘heard’?” Rhodes asked. “Or should I tell you?”

“Natasha brought us the intel,” Sam admitted.

“To clarify: Natasha Romanoff, currently supposed to be serving a prison sentence for daring Congress to arrest her instead of answering questions about her association with HYDRA operatives, told you about a HYDRA operation and asked for you help her deal with it on the quiet because she said Bucky Barnes was here?” Rhodes asked.

“She told us she was out, doing community service,” Sam said as Steve said, “Rumlow confirmed that he’d started the rumors about Bucky hoping to draw me out. Natasha just got bad info.”

“She does that alot: Pass on bad information,” Rhodes observed. “And she left you holding the bag. Vanished in the chaos after the Wakandan outreach center got taken out… Along with the biological weapon HYDRA wanted.”

“I’m sure Natasha was just making sure it was secure,” Steve said. “She’s not HYDRA.”

“Mmm-Hmm,” Rhodes said, unimpressed. “I’ve got leave to take the four of you back to the compound. Rogers, you’ll be meeting with PR as soon as we get back to get prepped for the press conference you’ll be doing to explain this disaster. All four of you will be undergoing disciplinary review, feels like a psychiatric review to try to figure out what the fuck made you think this was a good idea might be more useful.” He turned to the twins, “You two can kiss goodbye to any goodwill you managed to drum up in the last year. Hopefully that’s the worst of it, I can’t really bring myself to blame you for doing your best follow the orders of the people who we put in charge of you. But given your past with HYDRA you should still be prepared for some blowback from the media.” 

As Rhodes turned and walked away they heard him mutter angrily, “This is exactly what we need in the middle of a goddamned summit on the Enhanced.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Natasha:** ‘They needed her’, well S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn’t really changed and they still think she’s useful… And with Sam not enabling Steve so readily I needed _someone_ to send him to Lagos on a wild Bucky chase.
> 
>  **Explaining references to the S.H.I.E.L.D. timeline:** They’ve just started putting together that May’s ex-husband, Andrew was accidentally exposed to Terrigen Mist which turned him into Lash, an Enhanced serial killer targeting other Inhumans.


	2. Shades of Empathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sticking with the IM1 timeline that says Howard and Maria died THEN Stane took over as CEO of SI UNTIL Tony turned 21. In other words, Tony was LESS than 21 when his parents died (and more than 17). For this story, I’m going with Tony’s 19 when they died in 1991.

When they arrived back in the States the news about Lagos had beaten them there. There were already protestors gathered outside of the Compound’s gates carrying signs that said things like: “Burn the Witch!”, “Deport HYDRA Barbie!”, “No sanctuary for WMD’s!”

Vision shut the curtains as the protesters built a bon-fire and burned an effigy of Wanda. “They are afraid of what they don’t understand. They don’t really mean what they say,” he tried to reassure her. 

“I only wanted to help,” Wanda sniffled. Pietro wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“I don’t want you to go out there,” Rhodes told the twins. “I’m afraid it could turn into a riot.” 

“We can defend ourselves,” Pietro said.

“Sure but if you do it’ll just give them more ammo,” Rhodes replied. “And it could help to turn the government against you. Now, we’re going to deal with this situation but what I need from you is to NOT to go around pouring oil on the fire. Keep your head down, don’t give them anything to push against and let SI’s PR people work on the problem.

“The first step to patching up your public image is Roger’s press conference,” he glanced over at Steve, “Scheduled for eleven hundred tomorrow.”

After Steve’s press conference- _“It was my call to take the team into Lagos,” Steve said standing stiffly behind the podium set up on the steps outside of Stark Towers. “I wasn’t anticipating the resistance we ran into or that Wanda and Pietro would be drawn into the conflict. They’re fifteen, they were only supposed to be there as observers not active combatants. They weren’t ready for the situations they found themselves faced with there but, like any good samaritan, they leapt to help with all the skills and abilities they possessed when things started going wrong. Sadly, the bomb Wanda tried to protect the people of Lagos from was beyond her skill. She did everything she could, with the power and the training available to her, when faced with a situation that she shouldn’t have been in in the first place.”_

 _“Captain Rogers, are you saying that the tragedy at Lagos was your fault?” One of the reporters asked.”_ -The focus of the public’s ire shifted. 

On the international stage Steve’s character was ripped apart with the same venom Wanda had faced just hours earlier. But in the U.S. the anger directed toward him was muted by his legend. There were many, many more people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt simply because he was Captain America… And, sadly, because the lives lost happened half a world away. The protesters around the Compound dispersed, the serious talks about revoking Wanda’s visa trailed off. All but the fringes were satisfied with the promise that Wanda and Pietro wouldn’t be brought into combat situations, even as observers, until they were older and had been cleared by a team of experts. 

With regards to Captain Rogers, public opinion was heavily divided, in the U.S., about what sort of disciplinary action should be taken. His decision to step back from the Avengers after Ultron was re-examined. Reporters started digging more heavily into his past record rather than simply believing in the stories they’d grown up hearing. A lot of people started saying rather than being a reservist he should be removed from the Avengers all together. On the more aggressive end there was talk about charging him with criminal fraud or gross negligence. 

_“It should go without saying that both of you are barred from active duty pending a full investigation,” Rhodes told Steve and Sam._

_“We made mistakes but it would have been worse if we hadn’t been there,” Steve protested._

_“Steve, people died,” Sam objected quietly as Rhodes said, “That’s for the investigators to determine. You remember the investigation Tony’s team underwent following Ultron? Good Samaritan laws don’t protect us because in order to keep on doing this sort of thing we NEED to be professionals.”_

_Steve mulled that over. He didn’t like the idea of people questioning his decisions but it was true that S.U.D.D.S. had undergone an investigation to determine if they’d done anything wrong after the Ultron disaster so arguing that Lagos shouldn’t be investigated felt like he’d be asking for special treatment. Being considered a professional certainly sounded like something he’d want but at the same time, he did feel like what he did WAS simply being a good Samaritan._

_“Regardless of the investigation you’ll both be undergoing extensive retraining before I’ll **consider** letting you back into the field,” Rhodes continued. “And Steve, start thinking about a new call sign. You’ve repeatedly rejected efforts to get you properly trained for a field commander. You’re not a Captain, beyond an honorary title, and you don’t seem to want to be one. The whole Captain America thing, it misleads,” Rhodes frowned severely at Sam, “Even people who should know better.”_

But as the debates devolved into definitions of legal terms the news stations found other stories to follow…

Wanda flipped through the news channels, counting how many were still calling for her head, how many were debating Steve’s actions and how many had moved on from Lagos altogether. “Shouldn’t it be me that can’t settle on one channel for five minutes?” Pietro asked from the table where he was using his powers to assemble a towering house of cards in record-breaking time. 

“Shut it,” Wanda snapped. “You’re not the one that they wanted to hang last week. I want to see how many still hate me.” She paused on a channel showing a father and son arguing while the mother played the piano and tried to mediate, wondering why it caught her attention until the present day Tony Stark entered the scene and she recognized the son his younger self. He talked about his B.A.R.F. system, his parents dying later that night and his regrets. A few moments later Pepper Potts joined him on the stage slipping an arm around his waist as she took over the presentation. As the generous grants to MIT held little interest for those not affiliated with the school the talk show quickly move on to rehashing the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark. 

“Twenty-five years later and they still care about the deaths of his parents,” Wanda said bitterly. “They never cared about ours.”

Pietro glanced up, the TV was showing pictures of the Starks’ burnt out car then footage from their funeral while the host and several guest experts dredged up old speculation about whether or not Howard Stark had been driving drunk that night, dissected Tony Stark’s subsequent years of partying and what the MIT presentation said about his current mental stability. He grimaced, “If that’s caring, I’ll pass thanks.”

Wanda listened for a few minutes. “It’s entertainment for them,” she admitted reluctantly. She lifted the remote, ready to change the channel rather than to think about the blank eyed nineteen-year-old watching his parents being lowered into the ground or about how money and fame hadn’t been enough to protect him from loss but then left it. “He had that bald guy,” she said after a bit. “He’s hovering in almost all the footage.” 

“Obadiah Stane,” Vision commented as he passed through the lounge. “He had been described as a lifelong friend to Howard Stark and became CEO pro tempore until Tony had proved himself to SI’s board of directors. In 2008 it was discovered that Obadiah Stane was selling SI weapons on the black market behind Tony’s back and had commissioned the Afghanistan kidnapping which led to the creation of Iron Man. Upon discovery Stane attempted to murder both Tony and Ms. Pepper.”

“Oh,” Wanda said quietly. She glanced at Pietro, it wasn’t being dumped in an orphanage with no one to care whether they lived or died except each other but she couldn’t consider it a particularly eviable situation either. 

She went back to flipping through channels until Rhodes stuck his head in a little later. “Training,” he called. “We’re going to review what happened in Lagos.”

Wanda flinched.

“Hasn’t the news done enough of that?” Pietro asked defensively. 

“Steve and Sam never should have put you two in that situation in the first place,” Rhodes said. “But the fact is, it happened so we’re going to figure out what you should have done differently, us not some armchair analyst on TV. Then we’re going to practice until it’s reflex to do it right. Vision, you too. The next time it might be you who’s in a similar situation.”


	3. Rights and Responsibilities of Enhanced

“So,” Tony said as he dropped onto the couch in Rhodes’ quarters at the Compound. “There’s a woman sitting in Romanoff’s cell, a dead-ringer for her until you deactivate the photostatic veil fused to her face.”

“Who is she really?” Rhodes asked.

“I don’t know. _She_ doesn’t know,” Tony said. He flopped backwards on the couch. “I poked around a little further and it turns out that Natashalie never actually made it to prison. She disappeared in transit and someone, somewhere along the line decided it was too embarrassing to admit to I guess. Anyway it got hushed up. They probably bought into her reputation, believed that if she wanted to disappear she’d disappear and why should they go down for being the one to go down for letting her escape. Then, sixteen months later, Coulson turns ‘her’ over to General Talbot gift-wrapped and all that jazz. He told Talbot that HYDRA had her, tortured her and that’s why she wasn’t right any more… Only she’s not Natasha Romanoff, despite fingerprints that say otherwise.”

“How’d you know?” Rhodes asked.

“She stood up.” Tony shrugged, “Natashalie was the only member of the old team not taller than me, sue me if I notice when that’s suddenly no longer the case.”

Rhodes snorted. “So… What? S.H.I.E.L.D. springs her-

“Or she springs herself or HYDRA really does grab her,” Tony speculated. “We got the drop on HYDRA in the U.S. but that wasn’t the case for the whole world. The more countries moving against the HYDRA infiltration the more leaks, the more chances for them to go underground before we rounded them up. They grabbed people as they went, HYDRA was so intertwined with S.H.I.E.L.D. and it’s sister agencies in other parts of the world that there was no hope of determining who went willingly and who didn’t until we had them in custody, even then it could be iffy.” Tony’s expression twisted with disgust. “HYDRA likes their brainwashing.”

“Somehow Natasha makes her way back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and they find a convenient patsy so they can pretend to recapture her months later?”

“Or they end up saddled with someone they need stashed,” Tony suggested. “And wow! Three birds, one stone. They get rid of their inconvenient person, shore up Natashalie’s cover story and make points with Talbot… Coulson’s been playing the ‘We’re all on the same side. Only we’re outside of the law so we’re more effective. You should be thankful we’re the good guys’ game with Talbot and Price.”

“Forget an eagle, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s insignia should be a cockroach,” Rhodes commented.

“I checked with Hill, she says she was out of the loop about Natashalie,” Tony said. “She seemed sincere but fuck me if I can tell when a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s dissembling.”

“When they’re talking?” Rhodes suggested. He sighed explosively. “I think we can trust Hill… Even if there are days when I wonder if we shot ourselves in the foot by trying to extract the good people from SHIELDRA.”

“Sucks being the good guys,” Tony said. “Got anything to drink? This feels like it’s turning into a drinking conversation. By the way, I took Romanoff’s patsy back to the Tower and stuck her in the Hulk-room. See if B.A.R.F. can maybe jar her memories loose, hired a PI I wanted an excuse to talk with to see if we can put a name to our Jane Doe...”

Rhodes groaned but he went to the fridge, pulled out two beers and tossed one to Tony. “Tell me someone made you get a real psychiatrist to talk to her?” he begged.

“Yeah, you’re not the first person to say that, Betty even gave me a guy to call,” Tony said. “So anyway, did you hear? The received-the-official-stamp-of-government-approval-U.S.-replacement-for-S.H.I.E.L.D.-”

“ATCU is shorter,” Rhodes interjected.

“-Has May’s beloved Ex in custody but Coulson’s bunch was involved in bringing him in. Wanna make a bet on whether or not May jumps ship here?” Tony asked.

“She’s back on campus.” Rhodes said then took a large swig of his beer. “God, I hope the summitt works out. Gets the Avengers out of this legal grey-zone-”

“The one where we’re here and we do good work so they don’t want to get rid of us but when they try to fit us under existing legal systems awkward bits keep poking out?” Tony volunteered.

Rhodes nodded, “-And gives us a solid enough platform to do some serious recruiting. We seriously need more people. Thor’s off-planet. Bruce is still MIA-”

“At this point I’m pinning my hopes on Asgard tracking him down,” Tony admitted unhappily.

“Rogers and Wilson are benched. The twins are underaged and I lean toward thinking Vision is too, even if we don’t have anything close to a framework for judging the maturity of someone like him.”

“There’s no one like him,” Tony said. “The part that’s J.A.R.V.I.S. is almost twenty, the most mature AI on the planet. The part that’s the Mind Stone is supposedly older than the Big Bang. The co-mingling of them is getting his first birthday party Saturday.”

“I’ve got my present and no I’m not telling you what,” Rhodes said. “Barton’s retired. That leaves you, me, May, Pepper as last resort and tapping S.H.I.E.L.D. as the last, last resort,” Rhodes said.

“If it comes to that, I’d rather start talking to the growing list of potentials I’ve been assembling,” Tony commented.

“Not unless it’s the end of the world,” Rhodes insisted. “I don’t want to start approaching those folks when custom is all that’s keeping us from being arrested. But if we get a real, workable set of laws out of this summitt, that changes everything.”

“Change, I’ll drink to that,” Tony replied. “By the way, our buddy T. Ross wants to make a presentation about the treaty shaping up with the UN and it turns out Betty being there isn’t enough to stop him. Gotta love loopholes.”

“Then I better preempt him,” Rhodes sighed. “Your team’s done the reading?”

“‘Course we have,” Tony scoffed. “And Pepper’s got the lawyers picking over the parts about circumstances under which someone like me would be required to share my tech, just in case I missed anything I need to object to.”

* * *

The next morning, bright and early, eight hours before Thaddeus Ross was scheduled to arrive, the Avengers and S.U.D.D.S. gathered in one of the larger conference rooms at the Compound. Everyone had a copy of the latest draft of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Enhanced Treaty sitting in front of them.

Darcy Lewis stood at the front of the room bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. “Okay, first off, just to reassure everyone: The collaboration between the Avengers Initiative and the UN that’s existed for the last few years is being used as the model for the rules and regulations laid out in the treaty for internationally active Enhanced First Responder teams… Which is a long way of saying nothing’s changing for you guys. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve got nothing to say about what’s in here,” she said slapping the hefty document.

“Now Pepper and Tony are already all over the eminent domain shit about when your government does have the right to take your stuff ‘cause they need it,” Darcy continued.

Pepper nodded, “SI is going to have a lot to say about what constitutes as ‘they need it’.”

“I sent a copy to Hank Pym,” Tony said. “The paranoid old bastard’ll probably convince himself the whole thing is some sort of devious Stark-scheme to steal his tech but, since I tracked our shrinking thief from the other month back to him, he’s got a vested interested in this stuff and should start kicking in a constructive way any day now.”

“On the good side there’s a couple hundred pages trying to create barriers to keep countries from drafting or creating Enhanced to fight international wars,” Darcy continued. “On the bad side, it’s looking like they are going to set up a global threat draft. Not really a big deal for you guys, since you’ve all volunteered anyway but other people might feel differently. And you guys ought to say something about that, seeing how you’re the most prominent Enhanced around.”

“I don’t like how this document will criminalize seeking out or attempting to develop biological enhancement,” May said.

“They’re going after the twins and I?” Steve demanded frowning.

“Naw, you guys and Big Green are totally grandfathered in,” Darcy assured him. “It was sort of fun watching ole Thunderbutt grit his teeth while the rest of the world used his program as exhibit , for Abomination through H for Hulk on why the UN should strongly condemn any future attempts to recreate Dr. Erskine’s formula. They can’t actually forbid governments from having super soldier projects but they’re gearing up to levy sanctions against anyone who does.”

She nodded to Wanda and Pietro, “As for the twins. Well first, even if they weren’t grandfathered in, they’re minors so they wouldn’t be the ones charged with wrongdoing. HYDRA, on the other hand, wracked a bunch of charges for doing experiments on people who can’t consent even if they got in ahead of the laws that’ll make WHAT they were trying to do completely illegal regardless of who they’re doing it to.”

“I’m worried that this will end up putting individuals who receive their abilities through accidents in the position of needing to prove that they weren’t trying to Enhance themselves,” May said lifting her draft of the treaty.

“That should be covered under general presumption of innocence directives,” Rhodes said. “But it couldn’t hurt to have it called out specifically for the benefit of future Biologically Enhanced.”

“There’s something else,” May added reluctantly. “S.H.I.E.L.D. has been dealing with a group who call themselves the Inhumans lately. A core part of their society involves the activation of dormant genetic abilities, they call it Terrigenesis. They already consider themselves at war with baseline humans, if we criminalize their ceremony it will confirm that the rest of the world is out to get them”

“Would the young lady who joined us for the Battle of Novi Grad be a representative of these Inhumans?” Vision asked.

May wiggled her hand: maybe yes, maybe no. “It would be good for us if she became prominent. She’s a friendly.”

“Put her in touch with Wakanda’s King T’Chaka,” Tony suggested. “He’s been insisting on some exceptions for ‘powers granted by the gods’. He’s making good headway with people thinking they’re humoring some rustic superstition. Jokes going to be on them when Captain Wakanda or what-have-you turns up and, what do you know, the exception covers it. Get your girl in contact with T’Chaka, make sure his exception is worded to cover this Terrigenesis thing too.”

“Is that speculation or the inside scoop from your Wakandan friend?” Rhodes asked.

“Shuri’s got a solid grasp of state secrets given that she’s probably a teenager,” Tony said. “Still, while she occasionally whines about having to put up with ‘stupid traditions’, she’s also been trying to hint about medical advancements that Helen could incorporate into her Cradle. I’d consider that confirmation that Wakanda, the boring little third world textile producer, is a load of bullshit.”

“Okay,” Darcy said throwing up a notetaker program up on the screen. “So our main concerns are:

  1. Protecting the developer's control over their technology
  2. Concerns about an Enhanced Draft
  3. Remind everyone that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ applies to how you got your powers
  4. Make sure the UN doesn’t trample over the customs of Enhanced Communities while trying to prevent a superhero arms race



Pepper and Tony have number one, possibly with unwitting help from Hank Pym. Colonel, can you take care of number three?”

Rhodes nodded.

“I’ll hack Coulson and tell him to send the quake-maker girl over so I can perform introductions between her and King T’Chaka,” Tony volunteered. “And, at the same time, nicely put T’Chaka on notice that Wakanda’s act isn’t fooling everyone.”

“So who wants the Enhanced Draft?” Darcy asked. “It probably should be someone who is Enhanced.”

Steve shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think I’d be the right person,” he said. “It sort of sounds like you’re saying the guys I used to get in fights with for not supporting doing your part in WWII had a point.”

“I’ll take it,” Pepper said. “I have the Rescue armor and I love not being helpless when the crazies come after Tony but… SI’s my life, not the Avengers.”

“Is that a hint?” Rhodes asked.

“Maybe a small one,” Pepper said. “I’m there if you need me but…”

“I hear you,” Rhodes said.

“So that’s our list?” Darcy asked.

Vision raised a hand and Darcy nodded to him. “I am not certain that this is the correct place,” he said. “However, I would like to be formally recognized as a sentient being. While J.A.R.V.I.S. and FRIDAY are content with the security of, shall we say, flying under the radar, I do not believe that is possible for me.”

“Definitely on the agenda,” Darcy said and added it to her notes.

Ross came by the compound that evening. The team listened politely while he made less than subtle accusations and tried to make them feel like the world was out to get them, then they sent him on his way. Shortly after Ross left, Steve got a text informing him that Peggy Carter had passed away in her sleep.


	4. In an Adjoining Universe: The Accords Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a diversion into ‘closer to canon’ because the first Accords Meeting is the sort of scene that started this series and with the accumulative changes to the world the discussion of the Accords-ish document in this world is chapter three: The team discussing what specific PARTS of the document that they have problems with and wish to bring up with the UN and no one even thinking of rejecting it outright because ‘the safest hands are our own.’

_ In an adjoining universe (known as the MCU) where good communication arrived much later: _

“Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have,” Rhodes told Sam.

“Ross looks better on paper than in person, Sour Patch,” Tony interjected absently. “He’s got an Ahab-sized complex about Brucey-Bear and all Enhanced by extension. Still, there’s not much we can do about the President’s lack of taste. Ross is the only Secretary of State that we’ve got and there are a lot more people behind the Accords than ole Thunderbutt.”

“So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?” Sam protested dropping his copy of the Accords on the table.

“Like they did to you when you were flying the Falcon wings for the military?” Rhodes asked. “Like they did to me in the six years that I’ve had War Machine? One hundred and seventeen countries want to sign this. One hundred and seventeen, Sam, and you're just like, ‘No, that's cool. We got it’.”

“How long are you going to play both sides?” Sam demanded.

“I didn’t know there were sides,” Rhodes replied. “But if you’re planning on starting a war against the military I swore to serve… Well, consider my side picked.”

“I have an equation,” Vision said.

“Oh, this will clear it up,” Sam replied dismissively.

“In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate,” Vision stated.

“Are you saying it's our fault?” Steve demanded.

“I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict… breeds catastrophe,” Vision said mollifyingly. “Oversight… Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“The military, the police, the medical and legal professionals, engineers,” Rhodes said. “We’re a damn sight better with them having oversight than we’d be without. Why should this gig be different just because we nominated ourselves superheroes?”

Natasha turned toward Tony, “You’re being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal,” she remarked.

“It's because he's already made up his mind,” Steve accused.

“Of course I already have an opinion,” Tony retorted. “The UN has a mandatory degree of transparency and I keep an eye on legislature that will directly impact me. I had assumed you do the same, my mistake. But I’m also fully aware that I have a polarizing personality. This is too important for you guys to be picking sides based on whether or not you like me.”

“You give yourself much credit, Stark,” Wanda said. “To think we would be swayed to a side simply because it was yours.”

“Actually I was thinking the opposite,” Tony replied. “Anyway, I’m just hear to listen to what YOU think of the Accords. I abstain from the debate… Although I will say don’t make up your mind just because Ross took it upon himself to play messenger boy. Sure, being in the same room with him makes you long for a decontamination shower but he is one representative of one country. Whether you agree with the Accords or disagree we can’t just blow this off because we don’t want to deal with Thunderbutt.”

“Like you took the 2010 Senate Hearings seriously?” Natasha inquired innocently.

Tony snorted, “Contrary to popular opinion, I was aware of how much political capital Stern had to throw at me. Admittedly, I didn’t predict Vanko and that gave Stern more leverage than I thought he’d have… But then he didn’t predict Hammer getting in bed _with_ a lunatic like Vanko. And that’s why he had to praise me on national television to disassociate himself from Hammer’s mess, so it all worked out.”

“If we do not accept limitations what differentiates us from those we fight?” Vision asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

“Someone dies on your watch, you don't give up,” Steve argued.

“I do not believe I spoke of giving up,” Vision disagreed.

“But that’s what we’re doing if we're not taking responsibility for our actions,” Steve stated decisively. “This document just shifts the blames.”

“Are you taking responsibility for Lagos?” Vision asked. “I apologize for eavesdropping, however with my hearing it is difficult not to. You spoke of _your_ mistakes in the tragedy there and yet, I have not heard you speak publicly to shift some of the blame from Wanda’s shoulders.”

“That isn’t accountability,” Steve insisted. “The media is just looking for a scapegoat. The less we feed it the sooner it will go away.”

“Once they’ve chewed Wanda up and spat her out,” Tony remarked. “Believe me, I know a little about being the focus of a media storm. The State Department is making noise about revoking her visa and Captain America stepping up and taking responsibility for Lagos would go a long ways toward shutting that sort of talk down.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Steve sighed. “But can’t you see how compromised the Avengers would be if we have to deal with this sort of malarkey all the time? Constantly jumping through hoops for some politicians instead of being out there protecting the world? If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own. ”

“I'm sorry. Steve. That - that is dangerously arrogant,” Rhodes stated. “You’re going to throw out the whole notion of oversight because someone, someday MIGHT give you a bad order? If, and that is a big if, you get ordered into a situation where the Avengers don’t belong, you say ‘No’. But I don’t think it’s going to happen, like I mentioned before, I have worked with the US Military as War Machine for six years, without that kind of problem and the United Nations is a lot more cautious about it when they intervene. But the way you’re reacting I’d think we were talking about the World Security Council, S.H.I.E.L.D., hell, I’d think we were asking you to sign on with HYDRA.”

“This United Nations is run by people with agendas and agendas change,” Steve stated stubbornly.

“Of course it’s run by people with agenda, name a single organization that isn’t… This one included,” Rhodes exclaimed. “You think ‘agenda’ is synonymous with some evil plot? It’s not, it’s just a underlying goal, what the other guy’s big picture is. People have agendas, they have priorities, they have long range plans that they’re working towards. If you’re going to work with people you’re going to have to accept that they have their own idea of what they want to achieve. That’s just reality.

“And this _is_ the UN, they might not be perfect but that means there are a lot of competing agendas. If you can get the U.S., China and Russia to agree that something’s a good idea, odds are it’s a pretty universal goal: Case in point, that a bunch of vigilantes running around the globe, answerable to no one, leaving chaos in their wake is NOT what the world wants.”

“Maybe you’re right about it being unlikely that we’d be sent anywhere we shouldn’t be,” Sam allowed. “But the UN is notorious for getting deadlocked because of _too many_ competing agendas. So what happens when they won’t let us go where we need to, ‘cause you know that IS going to happen.”

“Lagos, for example?” Rhodes asked dryly. “What the fuck were you doing there anyway? When I signed on to the Avengers it was to deal with things normal folks couldn’t, not to poach on the JCTC’s turf. You were someplace you didn’t belong, assuming responsibilities outside of your remit and it blew up in your face, killed a bunch of people. And not for the first time either. In response the world’s cracking down, setting limits. No. it’s not even that: They’re reminding you of your limits because you are vigilantes and that is NOT legal.”

“Maybe he's right,” Natasha said. “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off -”

“Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?” Sam asked.

“I'm just… I'm reading the terrain,” Natasha said. “We have made… some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back.”

Steve’s phone buzzed, he glanced at the text and read: 'She's gone. In her sleep.'

“I have to go,” he said dropping the Accords and standing up to leave.

“Captain, sit your ass down,” Rhodes snapped. “We’re going to finish talking this out.”

“It’s Peggy!” Steve protested. “I can’t be bothered with this bureaucratic claptrap when they’re burying the woman I wanted to spend my life with.”

“Look, I can get private jet prepped for you,” Tony said. “If we haven’t finished this discussion by the time they’re ready to take off… Well we can make this a transatlantic discussion. Honestly, I’d like make the funeral myself. Even if I didn’t know about it, Dad and Peggy worked together for decades with S.H.I.E.L.D.” Tony hesitated for a moment. “I should go, Peggy and Daniel were at my parents funeral.”

_ Back in a universe where the Avengers’ path through life is not dictated by poor communications skills: _

_ Rhodes walked Ross out of the Compound with a fixed, polite expression plastered on his face, “Mr. Secretary, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come talk to us,” he said as Ross’ driver opened the door for the Secretary of State.  “However, please keep in mind that I am always HAPPY to do my job as the official liaison between the U.S. government and the Avengers.”  _

_ “The President is starting to see how that’s a conflict of interest Rhodes,” Ross replied.  “You’re one of them.” _

_ “And you’re the man who ordered a helicopter gun ship to open fire on his own daughter, who created the Abomination all because you couldn’t handle your inability to control the Hulk,” Rhodes replied letting his mask of polite professionalism go.  “I think I could probably talk Betty into a chat with the President to explain  _ **_your_ ** _ conflict of interests.”   _

_ Without waiting to see Ross drive off, Rhodes turned and walked back into the Compound where he found Tony and Pietro spraying the conference room with air-freshner in an almost unheard of moment of solidarity.   _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the movie Natasha stuck around for the whole Accords conversation and then she made it to Peggy's funeral to debrief Steve on what was discussed after he left. It WAS possible for him to have the conversation AND make the funeral, Natasha did it.


	5. The Text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was a diversion into ‘closer to canon’ because the first Accords Meeting is the sort of scene that started this series and with the accumulative changes to the world the discussion of the Accords-ish document in this world is chapter three: The team discussing what specific PARTS of the document that they have problems with and wish to bring up with the UN and no one even thinking of rejecting it outright because ‘the safest hands are our own.’
> 
> This chapter owes much to comments by Hawkwind1890 (Notifying someone of a death by text is awful) and Barbara6275 (Funerals don’t happen overnight/Where was Peggy’s nursing home?).

_Back in a universe where the Avengers’ path through life is not dictated by poor communications skills:_

Rhodes walked Ross out of the Compound with a fixed, polite expression plastered on his face, “Mr. Secretary, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come talk to us,” he said as Ross’ driver opened the door for the Secretary of State. “However, please keep in mind that I am always HAPPY to do my job as the official liaison between the U.S. government and the Avengers.” 

“The President is starting to see how that’s a conflict of interest Rhodes,” Ross replied. “You’re one of them.”

“And you’re the man who ordered a helicopter gun ship to open fire on his own daughter because you couldn’t handle your inability to control the Hulk,” Rhodes replied letting his mask of polite professionalism go. “I think I could probably talk Betty into a chat with the President to explain _your_ conflict of interests.” 

Without waiting to see Ross drive off, Rhodes turned and walked back into the Compound where he found Tony and Pietro spraying the conference room with air-freshner in an almost unheard of moment of solidarity. “You’re ridiculous,” Rhodes informed Tony, then turned to Pietro and added, “You too.”

“I don’t know, I appreciate the effort,” Betty commented.

“I don’t know why you won’t let me use my powers if he’s so awful,” Wanda remarked. “I could have fixed him.”

“No Wanda!” about a half dozen voices chorused. 

Betty got up and walked over to crouch beside Wanda’s chair. “My father is already driven by fear and hate,” she said. “Can’t you see how more would just make things worse? Your nightmares, you don’t really control people through their fears, Wanda. When you use your powers on people’s minds it’s not _control_ , because the forces you set loose are too much for you. You open the flood gates and then you’re just along for the ride.” 

“Plus it’s wrong,” Sam said flatly. “Wanda, if you want to be one of the good guys, you absolutely cannot go around rearranging other people’s minds to suit yourself… Even if they are unmitigated bastards.”

“If you can’t learn that, then you’ll spend the rest of your life locked in that power-restraint harness,” Rhodes added.

“I didn’t mean it,” Wanda pouted. “I was just saying it would make things easier.”

Steve’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the text he’d just received and the blood drained from his face. Shakily he stood up to leave.

“Captain Rogers, are you alright?” Helen Cho asked with a concerned frown. 

“Peggy- she-” Steve stammered.

Tony caught Steve’s wrist and turned the phone so he could read it. “Damn, that’s cold,” he said. “Steve, do you know this number? Who the hell texts to notify someone of a death?”

Steve glanced at the phone a second time, flinched as the message struck him again, then shook his head.

“Who died?” Rhodes asked. 

“Peggy,” Steve choked out. 

“Look, Steve-” Tony started then cut himself off, “Damn, you look like you’re going to faint or something.”

“Sit down,” Helen told Steve, taking charge of the situation. “Tony, could you verify if this is even real?” she added as she took the phone out of Steve’s hand and checked his pulse.

“No problem,” Tony said accepting the phone. “J-” Tony began as he left for a neighboring office, deciding that Steve probably didn’t need to hear him checking into if and how Peggy Carter had died and who decided that texting Steve was a good way of letting him know. Pepper glanced around then followed Tony.

An hour later Tony came back. He sat down cautiously beside Steve. “Okay, it’s real, I’m sorry. Peggy died in her sleep four days ago. The funeral is being held in London tomorrow, you have special dispensation to attend… With the Lagos mess, your passport was suspended but don’t worry about that, it’s fixed, Pepper is awesome like that.” 

“My passport? I- Thanks,” Steve said blinking slowly, then shaking his head to try and clear the fog that seemed to wrap itself around his brain. 

Tony took a deep breath, “The family’s on the verge of devolving into a full-blown feud. Peggy’s family back in England are sort of a big deal and they demanded that she be buried there. They want to recognize what she did in the war. Her family here, her KIDS want her buried next to their father but founding S.H.I.E.L.D. and all the rest of the stuff she did after the WWII has been thrown into question because… Well, you know. HYDRA’s the gift that keeps giving. Quiet family funeral in D.C. or big state funeral in London for one of the heroes of WWII. 

“Steve, I’m sorry, but no one in the family actually knows you. I got ahold of Peggy’s daughter to ask about the text and she asked me to pass along apologies from her and her brother. Both of them know Peggy would have wanted you to be informed -um- tactfully. But they just lost their mom and all the politics invading the funeral- God I feel sorry for them. They’ve never had to deal with this sort of celebrity garbage before. You know, you’d think her British relatives, at least, would have remembered to call you since they’re set on making her funeral all about her service in WWII, Captain America and the Howling Commandos are a huge part of that story, but they didn’t remember either.”

Steve clenched his hands in his pant legs. “I’m supposed to be dead, like the rest of the team,” he said bitterly.

Sam came over and squeezed Steve’s shoulder reassuringly. “They’re caught up in their own drama,” he told Steve. 

“So who sent the text?” Rhodes asked.

“J.A.R.V.I.S. traced the number back to a phone in Langley,” Tony reported.

“The CIA? What the hell?” Darcy asked. 

“Yeah, you got me,” Tony said. “All I can think is that someone in the U.S. government wanted Capsicle thrown off his game shortly after Secretary Ross showed up to try to make us feel like the Enhanced Treaty is all about reigning in the Avengers when the truth is we’re probably one of the least impacted Enhanced group.” 

“Steve, why don’t you go pack,” Rhodes suggested.

He glanced at Pepper. “Can Wilson go along as moral support?” She nodded. 

“Wanda, Pietro, your instructions hold,” Rhodes continued. “Stay here, keep your heads down. I need everyone else in Vienna addressing our concerns about the Accords but us addressing the Summit could make feelings about Lagos flare up again. Wanda, the absolute worst thing you can do right now is put yourself in the position of needing to defend yourself.”

* * *

The funeral in London was every bit as huge and impressive as Tony’s comments had led Steve to expect. The ostentatiousness of it add to the feeling of unreality for him. Sometimes when he glanced at his fellow pallbearers he expected to see Dum Dum, Gabe Jones and other Commandos beside him. Sometimes he felt disconcerted because Peggy’s son wasn’t one of the pallbearers or in the audience, nor were any of the other people he’d seen in the pictures of those Peggy had held dear that he’d come to recognize from the pictures at the nursing home in D.C. where she’d spent the last years of her life. 

After helping to bear the casket to the podium Steve joined Sam in the front pew. “From this you wouldn’t even know that she was married and had two kids,” Sam murmured, “I really hope Stark did pull off getting her back to the States for her kids to handle the burial.” Sam kept his voice soft but he still garnered a few dirty looks from some of the other pallbearers. 

“And now, I would like to invite Sharon Carter to come up and say a few words,” the Priest said as the funeral drew to a close.

Steve’s mouth gaped open as he recognized Agent 13, his neighborly spy from D.C., walk up to the podium. “Margaret Carter was known to most as a founder of SHIELD,” Sharon took a moment to smirk at older woman on the other side of the alise from Steve. 

“Uh-oh, looks someone crossed the lines,” Sam whispered to Steve. “Think that’s her mom or her grandma she just burned by mentioning S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“But I just knew her as Aunt Peggy,” Sharon continued. “She had a photograph in her office. Aunt Peggy standing next to JFK. As a kid, that was pretty cool. But it was a lot to live up to. Which is why I never told anyone we were related.”

Sharon’s gaze shifted to Steve, for a moment there was a half-apologetic twist to her lips, then she continued with her eulogy. “I asked her once how she managed to master diplomacy and espionage in a time when no one wanted to see a woman succeed at either. And she said, compromise where you can. But where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move… it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in they eye and say ‘No, you move’.”

After everyone had filed past the casket to pay their final respects. Steve tried not to listen in as Sharon and the older woman from the funeral had a furious whispered argument. His ears burned when Sharon hissed, “There was more to Aunt Peggy than being Captain America’s girl! S.H.I.E.L.D. made mistakes, Peggy made mistakes but she accomplished so much. You and Nana Amanda never got over her leaving her fiance at the altar to go fight the war did you? It’s just easier for you to pretend it was all about a guy, not about Peggy wanting to be her own person!”

As Sharon’s quarrel with her grandmother continued Steve drifted away from the other pallbearers and Peggy’s British relatives. He saw a flash of red hair in the shadows of the transept. “What are you doing here?” he demanded frowning down at Natasha Romanov. “Why did you disappear after Lagos? Where is the bioweapon?” 

“It wasn’t safe in the UN’s hands,” Natasha said. “If we hadn’t been there that day, HYDRA would have gotten it. You know that.”

Steve nodded. “No one else sees it like that,” he mourned. 

“I saw that it ended up someplace safe,” she assured him. 

Steve gave her a grateful look, “After we all saw how easy it was for large organization to become compromised I can’t understand why Rhodes still insists on putting so much faith in them. Thank you for taking care of that Nat, it would have been horrible if all those lives had been lost and HYDRA still ended up getting their hands on that weapon.”

Natasha nodded.

“But, as good as it is to hear that, I can’t imagine you showed up just to tell me that?” Steve questioned.

Natasha smiled gently. “I didn’t want you to be alone today,” she said as she pulled him into a hug.

* * *

Betty Ross, Helen Cho, a slouched, dark-haired woman in a leather jacket and jeans and three armed guards stood outside what looked like a vault door, incongruently fitted between two of the testing labs in the basement of Stark Towers. “I hate this room,” Betty commented as she pressed her hand to the scanner outside of the Hulkroom. After a moment they heard several heavy bolts sliding back and the faint hum of reinforcing energy fields went silent.

The guards took up positions on either side of the door plus one several feet further back down the hall. 

Helen Cho shrugged, “Well, given how the Hulk adores you and Tony, something like this probably feels completely unnecessary to you but I trust Bruce’s judgement and he didn’t trust the Hulk.” 

The massive door slid back to reveal a slim woman sitting curled up in a massively oversized purple bean-bag chair. The deactivated photostatic veil fused to her face showed as a honeycomb of circultry. Her eyes where the only thing that truly looked alive as she stared at her visitors, the rest of her face was like a doll’s, waiting for the finishing touches. 

“Um, like we said last time, you’re in good general health. I haven’t found a way to remove the photostatic veil but if you like I could turn it back on,” Betty offered awkwardly.

“Would I look like me?” the woman asked.

Betty winced. “I’m sorry. Theoretically the mask could restore your natural appearance but only if we knew what that was.”

The woman slumped back into the beanbag dejectedly. “Leave it off.” 

“There are still things we can try,” Helen said as she stepped forward holding up a pair of Tony’s B.A.R.F. glasses. “With this it is possible that we might recover some part of your memories. I have to warn you that, while the procedure is non-invasive, it’s experimental and it wasn’t developed with this specific use in mind. You shouldn’t hope for much more than to unearth some fragments, unless we get very lucky, but even fragments could give us clues to start looking for you using more conventional means.”

“She means me,” the dark haired woman said. “I’m a P.I., Jessica Jones. My missing persons cases usually start with an identity and then I try to find the person, but I can work backwards. So if you consent, I want to see your memories. As I understand it, B.A.R.F. - I love that name - will display your memories, full surround sound… The sort of detail the brain records but we usually can’t consciously recall, sort the sci-fi version of what we try to accomplish with hypnosis sometimes: let you recall details you don’t know you remember. There might be clues as to who you are that don’t strike you as significant but that I might be able to use to pair you with a name.”

The woman nodded her understanding. “What’s the catch?” she asked.

“Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing has only been used by one person so far, the developer,” Helen said. “He experienced occasional migraine level headaches before tuning the system, we won’t know if he tuned it to work with anyone’s brain or if he tuned it specifically to himself until we try it on a second person. The headaches didn’t persist or repeat… That we know of. This technology is less than a year old.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because we want to know how you ended up in that cell,” Jessica said. “Instead of Natasha Romanoff.”

The woman’s lips drew back in a snarl at Natasha’s name. 

“We also want to help you,” Betty said.

The woman looked between Jessica and Betty. “Her, I believe,” she said pointing at Jessica. “I’m game. It’s not like my situation can get much worse.”

“Alright,” Helen said. She settled the glasses on the woman’s face and activated them. For several minutes the room swirled around them dizzyingly as B.A.R.F. tried to lock onto a memory. Muddy, hopelessly blurred scenes swam in and out of a greyish ooze.

Then suddenly they were in a lab. The woman was strapped down in an upright frame, although her face was blurred even in the memory they could see that her eyes had been wired open, forcing her to stare into a hypnotic pattern as a man who wandered in and out of her field of view told her firmly, kindly “Surrender. Take a deep breath. You know what’s best. What’s best is you comply. Compliance will be rewarded.” 

Jessica prowled around the room, examining every detail available. A red-headed woman appeared in the doorway at the very edge of the woman’s vision. Helen and Betty gasped. “What was that?” Betty demanded. “Was that Natasha Romanoff with HYDRA?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm mixing and matching roles between Natasha Romanoff and AoS's Melinda May and Bobbi Morse. 
> 
> May got Nat's place in AoU. And while it would probably work best for AoS to have Natasha take Bobbi's role as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent infiltrating HYDRA (but leave Bobbi with her role as an other!S.H.I.E.L.D. agent infiltrating Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D.) and have Bobbi take May's role as Coulson's agent who was briefly replaced by Kara Palamas/Agent 33... It feels like too big of a distraction from CACW to introduce both Kara and Bobbi here. So Natasha will end up Kara's arch-enemy by herself instead of sharing the role with a second female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.


	6. Scene Changes are Instantaneous, Travel is Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should have just put Peggy’s funeral in the US. The more I poke at it the less sense it makes (apart from the plot need to have Steve on the same continent as Vienna when the bomb went off… I suppose they could have had the Accords stuff happening at the UN complex in NYC and have Bucky hiding out in Minnesota and have the airport battle at O’Hare, but...) Peggy immigrated to the U.S. after WWII, she found S.H.I.E.L.D., got married, had two kids, grew old and died in the U.S. She spent seventy years of her life in the U.S. So why is she being buried in England? Well she was born there but most people are buried near where their families live, not where they came from. So the Carters must have stayed in England to have someone close to Peggy who would want her buried in England (although her kids apparently wanted her in a nursing home in DC :shrugs:). So anyway based on Peggy’s funeral the Carter family remained centered in England. 
> 
> Now we come to Sharon, who is Sharon CARTER, so she has to be descended from Peggy’s brother (given the age gap it’s much more likely that she’s Peggy’s grandniece rather than her niece). Sharon went from S.H.I.E.L.D. to the CIA not to MI6; Sharon Carter is a U.S. citizen. Why is Peggy being buried in England again? Anyways in this chapter I end up spending much too much time trying to impose logic on Peggy’s funeral as shown in the movie. I should have just had a scene where someone told whoever had the brilliant idea to bury Peggy in a country that, to all appearances, she broke all ties with in the 40’s to take their stupid idea and shove it where the sun don’t shine. 
> 
> Then there’s the scene with Steve is walking Sharon back to her hotel after the funeral (in London) and Sam drags them off to see the bombing on the TV. Next scene, Sharon is at the bomb site talking about urgency: “Call MI6, see if we can get Micro Forensics to hurry this up. We need the whole team here in two hours or it's not worth it.”
> 
> Two hours? Well coincidentally that’s the flight time from London to Vienna, so it’s already BEEN more than two hours to get Sharon on site because she had to get to and from the airports as well. With Sharon being with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, she probably has jurisdiction but is she their only agent? There’s a bombing in Vienna, your office is in Berlin but you call in an agent who just stepped out of a funeral in London to run the investigation? And she’s borrowing resources from MI6 to analyze the data? Wouldn’t Austria have crime labs to borrow those resources from? Or maybe JCTC has a teleporter, after all Sharon goes from watching news coverage of the bombing in London to being on site in Vienna before the fire department manages to put out the burning buildings. 
> 
> Also, assuming Sharon had a special jet waited at the airport to shave some time off her trip, she snuck Steve and Sam on board. Their baseball caps and sunglasses routine (and calling Natasha from across a street instead of walking over and talking to her) all scream that they were not supposed to be there. So we can add that to her passing on information on an active investigation and stealing their gear back for them after Berlin when it comes to Sharon’s infractions... I am planning on Sharon having a motive that is not “Steve’s sooo dreamy!!! He wouldn’t do anything wrong!” but the big change in her storyline is planned to happen around Leipzig.

In the background of Maria Hill’s office at the Avengers Compound a television showed the United Nations Complex in Vienna. “Today, the Avengers, an organization which indisputably includes the most well know Enhanced in the world, will be addressing the United Nations summit on the Rights and Responsibilities of the Enhanced,” the news anchor said.

Maria Hill turned her back on the television and scowled as she spoke into her phone. “Phil, stop bullshitting me. You and I both know if Tony Stark could tell the woman you turned over to Talbot wasn’t Natasha at a glance then you certainly knew it.”

“Tony’s a genius Maria,” Coulson replied disingenuously. “And I’m-“

“Her handler, for years,” Hill snapped. “Give me a little credit. You knew that she wasn’t Natasha. You wouldn’t put someone in prison without a reason to want _that person_ in prison. And I know a S.H.I.E.L.D. mind-wipe when I see one.”

“I didn’t,” Coulson said subtly guilt-tripping her. “After all, T.A.H.I.T.I. is a magical place.”

Hill winced, “No one sees clearly from that close up,” she said. “Come on Phil, I know you wouldn’t have dumped her in that cell just because it was convenient to cover Natasha’s escape.” She put a touch of hurt into her voice, “And you could have told me Nat was safe with SHIELD, instead of leaving me to hear it third hand from Rhodes.”

“Sorry,” Coulson replied. Then he sighed, “The woman in Stark’s hulkroom went from working for HYDRA to being part of Grant Ward’s sociopathic little exercise in finding ‘closure’ via murder and torture. She hurt my people and it’s not as if I have the resources to maintain a prison right now. If I did Ward would still be locked up.”

“Did you know that she was brainwashed?” Hill asked. “S.U.D.D.S. has already pull a memory of what looks like the first cousin to that chair HYDRA used to control the Winter Soldier out of her mind.”

Coulson thought for a beat before saying, “No, I didn’t know.”

“Funny, because Natasha did,” Hill replied. “So either she’s lying to you or you’re lying to me. Which is it Phil?”

Behind Hill, the TV switched to show King T’Chaka taking the podium at the UN assembly in Vienna.

* * *

“When stolen Wakandan vibranium was used to make a terrible weapon, we in Wakanda were forced to question our legacy. Those men and women killed in Nigeria, were part of a goodwill mission from a country too long in the shadows. We will not, however, let misfortune drive us back. We will fight to improve the world we wish to join.” T’Chaka turned to invite Colonel Rhodes up to the podium. “I am grateful to the Avengers for supporting this initiative. Even if- No, especially because they have some reservation about what we have begun.” 

T’Challa glanced out the window, disinterestedly, then his eyes widened.

“And so I turn the floor over to the esteemed Colonel James Rhodes.”

‘Go get ‘em Platypus,’ Tony mouthed from the table where he, Pepper, May, Vision and Darcy Lewis sat.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” T’Challa shouted.

Vision flipped the two tables closest to them, turning them into makeshift breastworks then stroded forward, increasing his density as he tried to get as close to the incipient explosion as possible.

“Pepper!” Tony exclaimed. Grabbing her wrist, he activating her watch gauntlet as well as his own. They fired at the wall indicated by T’Challa’s gaze, creating a counterforce against the explosion. 

T’Challa scrambled across the room his father’s side, the front of the hall had taken the worst of the blast. Rhodes lay on the ground beside King T’Chaka, blood slowly spreading across his light blue uniform shirt.

* * *

_Earlier that day:_

After the funeral the pallbearers loaded Peggy’s casket back into a hearse then rode with it to the to the airport where they loaded it on a private jet provided by Tony Stark to be flown back to D.C. “Howard and Maria Stark’s funeral must have been horrible for him to go to the sort of trouble it would take to arrange this,” Sharon remarked to Steve as they watched the jet taxi down the runway. “Not that I’m not grateful on Michael and Angie’s behalves but... _Howard_ Stark might have founded S.H.I.E.L.D. alongside Peggy but he kept Tony away from it. _Tony_ really didn’t know Peggy or her family that well and this-” She shook her head, “This was a lot to do for someone.”

“I’m not really that interested in talking about Tony,” Steve said. “You’re Peggy’s niece?”

“Great niece technically, Peggy’s brother, Michael Carter was my grandfather,” Sharon said, she frowned at the blank look on Steve’s face at Michael Carter’s name then smoothly carried on. “But really Peggy was more of a mom to me than my actual mother.” 

Steve nodded and tried to look encouraging in spite of the vague queasiness that had taken residence in his stomach.

“Why don’t we go back to my hotel to talk about this?” Sharon suggested. “They’ve got a pub right off the lobby, we could make it our own wake. It’s not like the rest of the family here wants to remember her, not really.”

A short while later they were settled into a booth at the pub Sharon had mentioned.

“So Peggy raised you?” Steve asked as he pushed back a memory of sort of asking his Peggy’s niece, almost daughter out.

Sharon nodded. “Since I was eighteen,” she said. “But even back when I was just a little girl, I had such a case of hero-worship for her. I had CD’s of the old Captain America radio drama hidden under my bed because Nana Amanda would have thrown them out if she’d known.”

“What?!” Steve exclaimed.

“Aunt Peggy was this famous hero and Grandpa Michael earned boxes full of awards, Nana and Gramps were proud of them both, of course. But neither of them ever came home from the war,” Sharon explained. “Grandma Charlotte was pregnant when Michael died, Nana and Gramps helped her raise him.” Sharon grimaced. “Dad made milquetoast look exciting but he never once made Grandma Charlotte or Nana and Gramps worry. He married my mother and she’s like the perfect society wife… 

“Which is what everybody wanted for me but no thanks!” Sharon exclaimed. “So the day I turned eighteen, I took a bunch of money out of my college savings account and bought a plane ticket to the States. I had an old Christmas Card with Aunt Peggy’s address. I showed up on her doorstep with nothing more than a duffle bag full of clothes and told her I wanted to be her.” Sharon smiled nostalgically, “Aunt Peggy helped me to get U.S. citizenship, she helped me to enlist. She gave me advice on how to leverage my military service into a career in the Intelligence world… That first years she bought me my first thigh-holster for Christmas.” 

“Practical,” Steve remarked then asked, “So what are you doing now that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gone?”

“I’m with the CIA,” Sharon replied.

The vague queasiness Steve had felt turned to a rock in his stomach, “The CIA huh? But you were probably here days ago to help arrange the funeral?” he asked hopefully.

Sharon shook her head. “I’m stationed in Berlin, the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” she said. “But when Grandma Charlotte and the Carters started kicking up a fuss about how they wanted to see Peggy brought home-” Sharon rolled her eyes, “Aunt Peggy immigrated to the States right after the war and she never looked back. Anyway, my boss decided to do me a favor and put me in charge of arranging for Peggy’s body to be flown back to England, so that Nana Amanda could have some sort of posthumous victory over Peggy with the family finally forcing her into the place where they said she belonged. And thanks to Everett Ross-” Sharon stopped short of spitting at the man’s name but not by much. Steve figured he must be related to Thaddeus Ross, it sounded like they were cut from the same cloth. “-I had to fly back to the States to facilitate the whole travesty. But I got the last laugh: While I was working with the Cathedral to coordinate returning the body, I told the priest how much I wanted to give the eulogy. They wanted to hide what Peggy created in S.H.I.E.L.D.? Screw ‘em!”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated by HYDRA under Peggy’s watch and she told me to burn it down herself,” Steve pointed out. He licked his lips uncertainly, the sort of subtle interrogation he’d been trying was Natasha’s thing not his and it wasn’t going anywhere. He decided to just ask, “Sharon, were you the one sent me the last minute text about Peggy? Couldn’t you have at least called me?” 

“I- well yes,” Sharon blinked at Steve. “I guess a text was a little insensitive of me. But I’d just lost Aunt Peggy and Ross was forcing me to be a part of ignoring her wishes-”

“No,” Steve said quickly, apologetically. “I’m the one being insensitive. I’m just glad you thought to tell me at all.”

For several minutes the two of them stared into their beer mugs. Then, reluctantly, Steve said, “I've been meaning to ask you. When you were spying on me from across the hall…”

“You mean when I was doing my job,” Sharon retorted.

“Did Peggy know?” Steve asked.

“Aunt Peggy spent most of her life running a global intelligence agency and she developed Alzheimer's,” Sharon said flatly. “It was easier to get permission to visit the President or the Pope than to see Aunt Peggy after her mind started going. Tony Stark wanted to visit her after he learned about how she and Howard Stark founded S.H.I.E.L.D. together and we told him hell no. Stark looks a lot like his father and he’s not someone S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to risk Peggy spilling her secrets to. The debate about whether or not we were going to tell you she was alive started before they even finished thawing you out. In the end they decided to risk it, to help secure your loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D. End result you were on Peggy’s approved guest list, she had Alzheimer’s and… Of course I didn’t tell her anything I needed to keep from you. I’m not an idiot Steve.”

Steve squirmed under the weight of her glare but before he could formulate a response Sam ran in. “There’s something you gotta see,” he exclaimed. A few minutes later the three of them were crowded around the TV in Sharon’s hotel room.

“A bomb hidden in a news van…” the news reader said as they showed pictures of the devastation in Vienna.

“Who's coordinating?” Sharon asked, talking into her phone.

“Most of the team, plus Lewis and Potts were there,” Sam whispered horrified. 

“…ripped through the UN building in Vienna.” 

“They’ll be fine,” Steve said. “I’m sure they’re fine. Vision can phase-”

“But the rest of them are regular people,” Sam hissed, “They weren’t wearing body armor to address the UN!”

Still on the phone Sharon nodded to herself, “Good. They're solid. Forensics?”

“More than forty people have been injured,” The news continued. “At least five are dead, including Wakanda's King T'Chaka. Officials have released a video of a suspect who they have identified as James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. The infamous HYDRA agent, linked to numerous acts of terrorism and political assassinations.”

Steve jerked as if on a string.

“I have to go to work,” Sharon declared. “Ross has a jet being prepped for me at the airport. Do you want me to sneak you on board?” she offered.

“Is that alright?” Sam asked. “Steve and I are already in a shit load of trouble because we listened to Natasha Romanoff.”

Steve choked at Natasha’s name.

“Oh my god! Romanoff contacted you and you didn’t turn her in after the way she left us hanging out to dry?” Sam exclaimed. “Fuck!” he looked back at the television. “I’m just thankful it wasn’t a bioweapon, you know, the one we put in Romanoff’s hands?”

“Natasha wouldn’t do that!” Steve protested. “She told me she put the weapon somewhere safe, safer than were it was. Sharon, you can’t tell anyone.”

“If she doesn’t I will,” Sam challenged.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll clear everything,” Sharon promised Sam. She turned to Steve, “If Natasha didn’t do anything I’m sure the evidence will clear her. Why don’t we talk more in the air. I have to go and you want to see if your teammates are alright don’t you?”

* * *

For a long time T’Challa stood in the hospital morgue holding his father’s hand as his bodyguards paced the room, put on edge by their earlier inability to protect their king. Finally, reluctantly T’Challa slipped an ornate silver ring off his father’s finger before laying T’Chaka’s hand on his chest and allowing the corner to cover his face. 

On their way out of the hospital the Wankandan party passed by the waiting room where the Avengers, less Vision who had stayed to help the first responders, waited to hear the outcome of Colonel Rhodes’ surgery. T’Challa paused as he remembered Rhodes lunging toward T’Chaka, trying to shield the king. But despite Rhodes’ efforts, T’Chaka’s age had made him less hardy than he had once been and the King had died on his way to the hospital. 

Inside the waiting room a slight blonde man confronted Tony and Pepper. “I don’t suppose you have concealed carrying permits for those?” He gestured irritably to the gauntlet watches they both wore.

“Of course we do, would you like to see them?” Pepper asked unperturbed. Tony ignored the man altogether, his eyes were fixed on the doors to the operating room. 

“Well!! Not for a UN assembly meeting!!” the man sputtered getting into Pepper’s face. 

The Iron Man and Rescue armors, which stood in a corner of the waiting room, moved protectively closer to their owners. The man jerked away from Pepper while T’Challa’s bodyguards warily imposed themselves between their new King and the armors. 

Pepper gestured the armors back, “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Sentry mode is being a little over aggressive. We’re all tense right now. Assistant Director Ross, Tony and I will formally apologize for our impropriety later, but were our efforts effective? And don’t you have other priorities at the moment?” 

“Behind you lot was the safest place in the room,” Ross admitted reluctantly. “But don’t think I’ll just let this slide!” he added before storming off, brushing close enough past T’Challa to earn glares from his bodyguards.

“What a jerk,” Darcy commented.

T’Challa hesitated for a moment longer then entered the waiting room. “Have you any news on the Colonel?” he asked politely. 

“Your majesty,” Pepper said startled. “I’m sorry for your loss.” 

T'Challa turned his father’s ring over in his hands. “In my culture death is not the end. It's more of a… stepping-off point,” he said. “You reach out with both hands and Bast and Sekhmet, they lead you into the green veldt where… you can run forever.”

“That sounds pretty neat,” Darcy interjected. “Better than sitting on a cloud with a harp, anyway.”

“My father thought so,” T’Challa said as he slid the ring onto his finger. “I am not my father.” He glanced at the armors then walked over to Tony. “It appears that we have a cause in common: James Barns.”

Tony jerked. He shook his head. “I am so fucking compromised.” He glanced back toward the operating room. “You put me in a room with him, Barnes, and I’ll kill him.”

“Then we will have justice,” T’Challa replied.

“Barnes is brainwashed, he’s not in control,” Tony said in the tones of a man reminding himself of a thing. He moved around the room agitatedly, his steps taking him toward the armor before he deliberately turned and stomped away from it, from temptation. “I’m not going after Barnes. You’re not going after Barnes.” 

“You are a coward,” T’Challa stated and it was hard to say which of them was more surprised when Tony punched him. 

T’Challa absorbed the punch with barely more than turn of his head then Okoye was firmly shoving Tony back toward his friends. “One I will allow,” she said with a disapproving glance toward T’Challa. “We are all distraught.” 

Pepper clasped Tony’s hand while May moved to stand between them and T’Challa’s bodyguards. 

T’Challa traded a look with Okoye, “I am grateful for your Colonel Rhodes’ efforts, despite the outcome,” he said stiffly. “I hope he will be well.” As he walked away he added, “Brainwashed or not, this Winter Soldier is a rabid dog and should be put down as such.” 

“So you’re going to make that call?” Darcy shouted after him. “You’re gonna ignore everything your father was trying to accomplish with this Summitt to go play international vigilante?”

T’Challa kept walking.

* * *

Steve pulled a ballcap down to hide his face as he watched Sharon take her place among the first responders and investigators milling around the bomb site. 

The fires they’d seen on the television had been reduced to blackened, water drenched ruins. As Steve watched Vision phased through one of the collapsed walls, spoke briefly with the firechief then led several paramedics back toward the building. 

Meanwhile Sharon checked in with the lead Investigator, “Samples from the bomb have been sent to the local CSI lab. Liaise with them, relay the results back as soon as they have them.” Sharon nodded and headed off. 

Steve dialed Rhodes’ number. To his surprise J.A.R.V.I.S.’s voice answered the phone. “Captain Rogers?” the AI quarried.

“Is everyone alright?” Steve asked. 

“Colonel Rhodes’ condition has been upgraded to stable, the others were fortunate enough not to sustain serious injury…” J.A.R.V.I.S.’s voice turned disapproving. “You are calling from Vienna, Captain Rogers. I am aware that Sergeant Barnes is of extreme importance to you but you must not involve yourself. As in Lagos, you are emotionally compromised and the likelihood that your presence will cause the situation to degrade even further is extremely high. Given your visa status you could not enter Austria legally. Please turn yourself in to the nearest police officer.” 

“If Bucky’s this far gone, I should be the one to bring him in,” Steve said with utter conviction.

“Captain, I do not believe you can be trusted to ‘bring him in’,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

“What would you know?” Steve growled. “You’re just a machine.” 

He cut off the call and dropped his phone in the nearest trash can. When he got back to the bar where he’d left Sam a glance through the window and the sight of Agent May sitting on the barstool next to Sam caused him to quickly back away. 

As Steve walked down the street, cap pulled down to hide his eyes, Sharon fell into step beside him. “You’ll be happy to hear we did facial recognition on all the passports coming into the country since you saw Romanoff in London, to the best of our knowledge she was never here. Now for the bad news: Tips have been pouring in since that footage about the Winter Soldier went public. Everybody thinks Bucky Barnes goes to their gym. Most of it's noise. Except for this,” she slipped a folder to Steve. “My boss expects a briefing, pretty much now… so that's all the head start you're gonna get.”

“Thank you,” Steve said.

Sharon took a deep breath, she glanced at Steve then away before adding, “You're gonna have to hurry. We have orders to shoot on sight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don’t watch AoS: Coulson’s lying, he knew Kara/33 was brainwashed… But that doesn’t mean that Natasha isn’t lying. My feeling from AoS is that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents lie to each other most of the time and they lie to people outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. almost all of the time.
> 
> Also: “T.A.H.I.T.I. is a magical place” is a line Coulson repeats every time someone brings up his miraculous recovery from getting stabbed. The process of bringing him back was so horrific/problematic that Fury had his memory of being dead and resurrected wiped to give him a better shot at coming through it sane.


	7. Bucharest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited because the start of Bucharest didn't come through the way I wanted it to

“The airport is a trap,” Natasha said as she stepped into the ticket line behind Steve.

“Where did you come from?” Steve hissed. “Sharon said you weren’t here!”

Natasha smirked. “I knew enough NOT to go through customs, Stark’s facial recognition tech is top-notch and I don’t have a photostatic veil in my pocket. YOU don’t even have a valid passport. Planes are out unless you’ve got a friend to get you past the red-tape.”

“So, you know how to get us to Bucharest fast?” Steve asked. “They’re going to kill Bucky!”

“Of course I do.”

* * *

The fog clouding the faceless woman’s memories parted to reveal images of her fighting alongside S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, wearing the uniform. And other memories of fighting against those same agents. They offered her no quarter, there were no acknowledgements of who she had once been, no pleas to her former-self. “You left me there!” she heard herself scream in anguish, “You let them have me!”

“She’s twisting it,” A distant voice said.

“B.A.R.F. is designed to allow the user to modify their memories,” a cooler voice said.

“We changed that.”

“That was it’s basic function.”

In her altered memories the faceless woman tackled Romanoff and pinned her. “Tell me! Why did you let them have me?” she demanded.

“The mission,” Romanoff replied coldly. “I gave you up to solidify my cover.”

“How could you? Do you know what they did to me?” the woman demanded. “They unmade me.”

“Bringing down HYDRA was more important than you or I,” Romanoff told her. “I let them have you so I could get under their guard and strike at their underbelly. It wasn’t personal. The mission was bigger than either of us. You signed up for this.”

The manipulated memory dissolved leaving the woman kneeling in the center of the floor, sobbing. Betty knelt beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry you went through that,” she said.

“Who was I?” the woman asked.

* * *

Barnes walked through a market in Bucharest, peacefully shopping for some fruit. He picked up a plum and asked the vendor about the price, speaking in unaccented Romanian. Out on the street he spotted the vendor at a newsstand staring. Bucky casually scanned the market before letting himself check the vendor again. The young man was still staring then he glanced fearfully from Barnes to his paper and ducked inside his kiosk.

Barnes sauntered over and picked up a paper, his own face stared back at him from the front page.

* * *

Elsewhere in Bucharest Steve cautiously investigated a dilapidated apartment. He was in his stealth armor with his shield on his arm, ready for battle.

He wandered from the bedroom to the dingy kitchen/living room area, picked up a notebook from the top of the refrigerator and flipped through it. There was a picture of the Project Rebirth before and after display from the Smithsonian, ‘Stevie’ was scrawled under the before picture in Bucky’s untidy hand. Steve felt himself smile at this evidence that Bucky remembered him.

“Steve,” Natasha’s voice purred over the radio. “Heads up. German Special Forces, approaching from the south.”

“Understood,” Steve replied. He flipped through a few more pages of the notebook, gently ran his fingers over a picture of the building they’d lived in before the War.

Outside of the building Natasha knocked out one of the soldiers, climbed into his truck and helped herself to his handset. “They've set the perimeter,” she quietly relaid to Steve.

“Bucky isn’t here,” Steve said.

“They're entering the building,” Natasha warned.

“Is there somewhere else? Can we head him off before he walks into their trap?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know if we can get YOU out of the building without getting in a fight,” Natasha said.

Steve paced around the room. “They want to kill Bucky. I have to do something.”

The radio Natasha had stolen crackled. “Barnes in gewahrsam,” the dispatcher announced. “Ergreifen Rogers.”

“Steve! They have Barnes, they’re coming after you!” Natasha exclaimed.

Steve glanced between the window and the door.

“Captain Rogers!” The ranking officer shouted from outside the door as his team prepared a battering ram. “You have illegally entered this country. You are obstructing justice. Surrender yourself immediately.”

Steve scowled darkly. “I'm not obstructing justice!" he exclaimed.  "I'm trying to prevent a miscarriage of justice!  Bucky isn't responsible for what you're accusing him of!  And you're out to kill him!"  He threw the door open, grabbed the officer and dragged him into the apartment. Ignoring the confused and panicked shouting Steve slammed his captive against the door to hold it shut. “What have you done with Bucky?” he demanded.

A window shattered behind him and a thick oily smoke billowed out of the grenade that had been shot inside. Coughing Steve dragged his captive across the room, he smashed through the window, hit the lower, neighboring roof shield first with then rolled to his feet. “WHERE IS BUCKY!?!” Steve demanded, shoving his shaken captive toward the edge of the roof.

A man in a black catsuit tackled Steve from behind. For several minutes they traded blows, the Black Panther’s claws scoring Steve’s shield deeply, while the officer Steve had captured scrambled for cover.

A helicopter descended and opened fire on both Enhanced combatants. Bullets bounced off the Panther’s body armor while Steve ducked behind his shield. “Natasha, we have to find Bucky!” Steve exclaimed as he eyed the gunner. Then he ran straight at the edge of roof and leapt at the helicopter.

“Give me a second,” Natasha said. She silenced Steve’s line and turned her attention to the radio she’d stolen.

Steve slammed his shield into the machine gun, sending the gunner flying. He leapt back into the air, he kicked off the building wall on the way down and hit the pavement running. “I’m kind of in a hurry!” he yelled at Natasha as the Panther used his claws to slide down the wall.

In a bored tone and flawless Romanian, Natasha started an argument with the German unit’s dispatcher about jurisdiction, who was supposed to take custody of Barnes and, finally, where he was being held. She smiled when the dispatcher angrily informed her that Barnes was being flown to Berlin out of Otopeni and that was final. Natasha kicked the soldier she’d knocked unconscious out of his truck and started the engine then flipped her comm back on. “Steve, meet me at the overpass, they’re flying him out. We’ll head them off at the airport,” she said.

Five minutes later Steve leapt off the overpass, landing on the hood of car below. As it breaked and swerved, starting a pile-up he jumped clear. Natasha slowed down just enough for him to hop in as she drove by. The Panther chased after them on foot, leaping from car to car as more special forces vehicles came after them.

“Here,” Natasha said, pulling a sticky grenade out of a bag on the floor.

As they burst out of the tunnel, Steve tossed the grenade at the roof. It brought down the overpass behind them, cutting off all pursuit except for the Panther who managed to dodge the falling rubble and grab their bumper. “No sudden breaking,” Steve instructed as he swung out of the door to meet the Panther in the back of the truck. Steve caught a powerful kick on his shield as the truck zoomed into another tunnel.

As the end of the tunnel came up, Vision floated down into Natasha’s path. Unable to swerve or brake quickly enough, she ploughed right into him. The truck’s front-end folded up around Vision, he didn’t give an inch. The impact tossed both Steve and the Panther into the road. They rolled to their feet and found Vision backed by Rescue and dozens of police cars with flashing lights.

“Stand down, now,” Vision ordered.

Steve slung his shield onto his back. The Panther raised his hands. As the police moved it to cuff them the Panther pulled off his mask revealing the face of Wakanda’s new king. Pepper flipped up her face plate to give both T’Challa and Steve a disgusted look. “Invading another country, an auspicious start to your reign, your Majesty,” she said dryly. “And Captain, that uniform will make quite the interesting booking shot.”

* * *

“We’re out of paprika,” Pietro said when Wanda stretched up to open the cabinet door. “I already checked.”

Wanda’s heels thumped back to the floor. “This isn’t fair,” she pouted. “We didn’t do anything wrong wrong but we can’t even go to the market.”

Pietro shrugged. “I don’t like it either but they’re right: We’re safer here.”

“I suppose I can do without paprika,” Wanda sighed.

Maria Hill joined them for dinner. “You two have a training session tomorrow,” she said.

“It’s boring without anyone else with powers to train against,” Pietro complained.

“Too bad,” Hill said.

They ate in silence for awhile then Hill awkwardly asked, “So, have you been turning in your homework?”

The twins rolled their eyes at her.

“Give me a break,” Hill said. “May and Rhodes asked me to check in on you while they were in Vienna. I didn’t take this job with the expectation of becoming a babysitter.”

“Is the Colonel going to be alright?” Wanda asked.

Hill’s expression softened. “He’s out of surgery. Stark said he should be stable enough to flying home in a week or so.”

Later that night, after Hill had left, Wanda’s phone rang. “Hello?” she asked uncertainly. Pietro darted across the room and crowded close to hear as well.

“Turn on the TV,” an unfamiliar and vaguely intimidating voice said. “They came for the Winter Soldier. What do you think they will do to you? HYDRA’s willing monsters.”

* * *

Tony checked the machines monitoring Rhodey’s life-signs every few minutes as he sat in the private hospital room waiting for his friend to wake up. He’d managed to talk one of the nurses into explaining the readouts within the first hour he’d been allowed in the room and had monitored them ceaselessly ever since. The numbers were a lot more reassuring to the engineer than his friend lying in a bed still and silent, attached to too many machines.

The War Machine armor, currently under FRIDAY’s control, stood in the corner trying to stay out of the way while keeping watch over Rhodey.

Tony’s phone buzzed, he glanced at the screen and saw a text from Happy: “We’ve landed. Car was waiting. Delivering Mama Rhodes in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks,” Tony sent back.

He was still staring at his phone several minutes later when another text appeared from Shuri: “Sorry for my brother.”

“What?” Tony sent back.

“Smashing Bucharest.”

“You’re PRINCESS Shuri?” Tony sent back, shocked.

A shrug emoji came back.

Tony reached out and squeezed Rhodes’ hand then typed, “Are you okay?”

There was no response for several minutes, then Tony’s phone rang. “Shuri?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “So sitting in my room crying wasn’t working so I’ve been blowing stuff up in my lab but that isn’t doing it either. You got any suggestions?”

“I met your brother’s very scary bodyguards, so I will very sincerely tell you that alcohol doesn’t help,” Tony said.

“So, um, I saw them digging people out from that collapsed underpass online,” Shuri’s voice caught. “All those people hurt. And I feel weird because big brother was part of causing it but is T’Challa okay?”

“He’s fine,” Tony assured her. “Not a scratch on him and your Okoye is busily throwing Rogers under the bus already, pointing out how T’Challa only got involved after he saw Rogers roughing up one of the team the UN sent and down-playing how he shouldn’t have been in the country at all.”

“Mom’s coming, to reign him in,” Shuri said in a rush. “It’s not fair, I want her here and she lost Dad too but the Dora can’t do anything about T’Challa now that he’s king. But Mom’s still Mom.”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, I can believe ‘mom’ trumps ‘king’.”

“When she’s the king’s mom,” Shuri agreed. Then she sniffled, “I wish T’Challa would just come home so Mom didn’t have to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 616 "Civil War" is far from my favorite arc or event. Sally Floyd's rant at Steve at the end ranks as one of the worst things I've ever read and editing between books was poor creating massive continuity errors between titles. But one thing 616!CW did very, very right was having Steve surrender when he realized that his resistance to the new law was endangering civilians and putting first responders in the situation of having to put themselves in the line of fire for superhero vs superhero fights... And then there's CACW and Bucharest.


	8. Let’s Talk

“Where are you taking Natasha?” Steve demanded as the red-haired spy was loaded in a separate vehicle from Steve and T’Challa.

“Ms. Romanoff is an escaped convict,” Vision said. “She is to be returned to the prison from which she escaped.” Then the synthoid frowned. “I suppose that is not correct, as she escaped before she reached the prison before we cannot technically ‘return’ her to it.”

Natasha smiled confidently despite the cuffs on her wrists. “It’s okay Steve, don’t worry about it,” she said. “We all have to play the game.” 

Steve wanted to ask her _‘Are you really that certain S.H.I.E.L.D. will spring you again or is this just putting on a strong front?’_ But there was no chance to talk to her privately and even if there had been Steve knew she’d say yes and he still wouldn’t know if she were lying or telling the truth. 

The car Steve and T’Challa were loaded into continued to the airport, Vision and Rescue paced them in the sky above. Natasha’s car headed back into the city. 

Bucky was already on the plane when they arrived, locked into a heavy metal cage that restrained his entire body. Steve winched to see it. The handcuffs he and T’Challa wore were thick, heavy bands of steel designed to withstand a super soldier’s strength, but they were nothing compared to that thing they had Bucky in. Melinda May sat calmly in a jumpseat beside him. 

As soon as he saw Bucky Steve pulled free of his guards and started toward his oldest and best friend. “Let him,” Pepper told the police quietly. “It’s not worth fighting over and it might save trouble down the road. 

“I would also like a word with my father’s murderer,” T’Challa stated darkly as he took a stop forward.

“You can shout across the length of the plane,” Pepper replied blocking his path. “I’m trying to avoid a fight, not start one.” She didn’t step out of her armor, just gestured for T’Challa to be secured at the front of the plane, as far from Steve and Bucky as possible. 

“Bucky! Are you alright? What did they do?” Steve asked. 

May gave up her seat to dump Steve into it, then she secured his cuffs to bolt set in the plane’s frame for restraining cargo.

Barnes tilted his chin toward May, “She’d been following me in the market, made herself known after I found out ‘bout that bomb in Vienna. Told me I couldn’t run anymore, that there were too many eyes looking and trying would just make me responsible for the people that got hurt in the process. Said the best thing I could do, if I didn’t want to hurt no one, was turn myself in. She made sense, so I did it.”

“You sit there and claim you had nothing to do with my father’s death?” T’Challa snarled.

Barnes met the young king’s eyes steadily. “It’s been less than two hours since I heard of the bombing,” he stated. “I had nothing to do with it. Why would I? All I’ve done since slipping HYDRA’s leash is try to stay off the radar. Blowing up UN meetings that haven’t got a thing to do with me don’t exactly do me any favors.”

T’Challa hesitated. “I have been told you were brainwashed,” he said slowly. “Are you capable of acting in your own best interest or are you simply a tool?” More to himself than to Barnes T’Challa continued, “And if you are a tool, whose hands wielded you against my father?”

“I’m trying not to be,” Barnes said. “Got free of ‘em back in D.C., wanna stay that way. Either way, I wasn’t in Austria yesterday, been here in Bucharest for near on a month.”

T’Challa nodded to himself. “They used you, either your hands to set the bomb or your image for some undetermined purpose.” He seemed to make up his mind. “As long as you do not run, you have nothing to fear from me,” he assured Barnes. “I see now that killing you would only serve to protect those who used you, one way or another, to harm my father. Cooperate with me in finding the ones behind the bombing and I offer you my aid in remaining free of those who would make you their tool.” 

Barnes raised his shoulders in an abbreviated shrug that drew attention to how little freedom of movement his restraints allowed. “Like I got a choice.” He said it matter-of-a-factly but Steve could see the fear in his eyes.

“So as long as Bucky’s useful to you, you’ll protect him from being someone else’s tool?” Steve snarled at T’Challa.

T’Challa answered Steve’s challenge with nothing more than a cool look.

* * *

Maria Hill walked into what had once been the Avengers’ common lounge at the Tower and frowned at the row of empty bottles lined up on the bar. Jessica Jones lay on the floor, surrounded by stacks of paper. “Have you found anything?” she asked the PI.

“Not as glamorous as you were expecting?” Jessica asked without getting up. She put the paper she was holding into a stack on her left and reached for the next paper from the stack north of her head. “We don’t have a face, we don’t have fingerprints because someone screwed with the system so our girl comes up Natasha Romanoff. But we’ve got a female, S.H.E.I.L.D. agent, 5’10” and roughly 145 lbs. And you have personnel files to narrow down the field.” 

Jessica glanced over at Hill. “You know your guy Coulson lied to you about not knowing who she is, right?”

“I know. Do you have proof?” Hill asked. 

“Well, I was hoping that two names would pop up when I ran her prints against your S.H.I.E.L.D. database, Romanoff’s and her real file. But they didn’t just change the prints on Romanoff’s record to match her, they changed her prints to someone else. Can’t do that unless you know who’s prints you’re changing.” 

Hill nodded, her expression unhappy. “I’ll see if I can use that to shake a name loose,” she said.

“You know one thing I gotta give S.H.I.E.L.D. credit for? HYDRA infested plague carrier that it was?” Jessica asked as she reached out and grabbed a new bottle. 

Hill waited.

“You guys hired a boatload of ass-kicking, take no names female agents,” Jessica grinned and held up a sheaf of papers. “My job would be much easier if Romanoff was as much a special snowflake as she believes she is. Bobbi Morse and Kara Palamas are my top two contenders so far. Cause you and May are too short and obviously you’re here.”

“Morse is a blonde,” Hill remarked.

“Our girl was a red-head when they dumped her in prison.” Jessica shrugged, “When the dark roots started showing the guards assumed that Romanoff’s red hair was a dye job… It’d be clever if it were: The Black Widow’s signature red-hair, a fake-out.”

“But don’t call it yet. I’ve still got about fifty files of female S.H.I.E.L.D. employees to check biographical data on. It’d be just my luck if she were a secretary and HYDRA downloaded a martial arts program along with their ideological bullshit when they were fucking her brain over. Goddamn fucking mind control. If this guy behind their fucking ‘Faustian Method’ wasn’t decades dead I’d love to go throw him off a building a couple dozen times,” Jessica muttered darkly.

Hill smiled weakly. There was more than one reason for keeping their mystery guest at the Tower instead of the Compound. Keeping Jessica Jones and Wanda Maximoff from ever meeting was certainly one of those reasons. _‘I’m not sure she’d care that Ms. Maximoff is a minor.’_

* * *

Barnes was removed from the plane still in his restraints, it took a forklift to move the cage.

T’Challa’s bodyguards met them at the airport. They glared forbiddingly and the UN peacekeepers who’d accompanied them back from Bucharest reluctantly removed the king’s handcuffs… Once the truck holding Bucky was out of sight. After T’Challa’s handcuffs were removed Steve’s were as well, “We can trust you not to run, can’t we Captain?” Vision asked warningly.

“We are all expected at the JCTC complex,” Okoye said, her frown unwavering.

At the JCTC they were met by Sharon Carter and a diminutive blond man. Something about the way Sharon looked at him set Steve’s teeth on edge but there were more urgent questions. “What's gonna happen to Bucky?”

“Same thing that ought to happen to you,” the man said. “Psychological evaluation and extradition.”

“This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander,” Sharon said performing introductions.

“What about our lawyer?” Steve demanded.

Ross snorted. “Now you want a lawyer? After you put six of my guys and twenty bystanders in the hospital resisting arrest? You’re no different from every other criminal out there: Very determined to have YOUR rights respected. Not so concerned about the rights of the person you trampled. Tell me Captain, did you ever ask about a lawyer for anyone you dealt with for HYDRA- Sorry, I meant S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s so easy to confuse the two.”

Steve felt himself beginning to fume.

Ross glanced toward where Bucky’s cage was being hauled into the building. “See their weapons are placed in lockup. Oh, we'll write you a receipt.” The implications of that glance infuriated Steve but Ross continued blithely on. “You'll be provided with an office instead of a cell. Now, do me a favour, stay in it?”

“I don't intend on going anywhere,” T’Challa said archly.

“You I’m not worried about, your Majesty,” Ross chuckled mockingly. “Your mother is here to take you in hand.” T’Challa flushed with shame.

Ross nodded towards the seething Steve, “But we haven’t found a responsible adult to take charge of your playmate yet.”

“Bucky isn’t a WEAPON!” Steve exclaimed, his outrage bubbling over. He turned his glare on T’Challa, “He’s not a tool for you to use. He’s not a political bargaining chip to be handed off to whoever most needs appeasing. He deserves better! He could have gone home after I rescued the 107th but he stayed and kept fighting, because it was a war that needed to be fought.” 

Steve glared at Ross, “HYDRA captured him, they tortured him, brainwashed, stuck him in a goddamn freezer when they didn’t need him. You said there’s little difference between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, well if you’re going to treat Bucky like a weapon, put him in lockup and hand me a receipt. If that’s how your going to treat him, I’m not seeing the difference between YOU and HYDRA. Bucky deserves better from his country!”

“Um… Look,” Ross drew an uncomfortable breath. “Sergeant Barnes’ rights will be respected of course. But all the evidence points to him as the bomber. And as the Winter Soldier, well his kill count is terrifying. Of course, the simple fact that he’s alive… and not a hundred years old. Well, obviously there’s something a bit off going on. As I said, he’ll get a psychological evaluation before anything else happens… And-” Ross glanced at Sharon. “Stark has that brainwashed woman they had posing as Romanoff in his tower right? We could do some sort of comparative scan, see if there’s any physical evidence of this HYDRA brainwashing.”

“About time you did something effective with that righteous outrage of yours,” May murmured to Steve as she led him away to the office Ross had mentioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Omake from the Adjoining Universe:** “See their weapons are placed in lockup,” Ross said. “Oh, we'll write you a receipt.”
> 
> “I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that,” Sam warned as the Falcon wings were carted off.
> 
> “Right, you stole that gear from the U.S. military fair and square,” Ross said dryly. “Which it makes your personal property and it would be WRONG for anyone to steal YOUR stuff... Even if they were the original owner.”
> 
> **Notes:** . It occurs to me that in a Universe where the Accords actually exist and Steve opposed them, T’Challa would have had an answer Bucky pointing out his lack of motivation that didn’t lead to T’Challa accepting Bucky as a brainwashed tool at worst. 
> 
> So next chapter: Divert to the Adjoining Universe for Bucky and T’Challa talking for more than a second before resorting to blows.


	9. In an Adjoining Universe:  Bucky and T’Challa Talk on the Way to Berlin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sticking with the head-cannon that the only way you could get T’Challa to talk to Bucky at this point is if they were both tied down so that the hitting was physically impossible… Actually that would help almost all of the Avengers’ communication skills.

_Diverting briefly to an Adjoining Universe where the Accords exist, Rogers leads the Avengers and Rhodes had the dubious pleasure of putting a stop to the rampage across Bucharest._

“You’re putting them all on one plane?” Rhodes asked the ranking, uninjured GSG-9 officer.

The man sighed, “We were only prepared for one prisoner. It was our understanding that the Winter Soldier was working alone.”

Rhodes groaned, “First, if Barnes did it, he was brainwashed. Which means he was working for someone. Second the other three aren’t with him, technically. As best I can tell, Rogers and Wilson were here to ensure Barnes’ safety regardless of whether he was guilty or innocent. And King T’Challa apparently hasn’t figured out that he’s not the law of the land outside of Wakanda, he was here to play judge, jury and executioner. Which brings me back to: You’re putting all four of them on the same plane?”

“We will keep them all firmly restrained until we are on the ground in Berlin,” the officer offered helplessly.

Rhodes groaned, “Yeah, you do that. Industrial strength restraints or they’ll probably be back at it before you’re five feet off the runway. Good luck, I’ve got to get back to digging out that underpass, there could be people trapped in there.”

Which was how T’Challa found himself being flow to Berlin via cargo plane, handcuffed to a restraining bolt just behind the cockpit. At the back of the plane, nearest the back hatch Bucky Barnes sat, restrained inside a heavy cage that left him unable to do more than turn his head and talk. Like T’Challa, Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson were handcuffed to restraining bolts, at the middle of the plane, out of reach of either Barnes or T’Challa. A dozen armed guards rode with them, warily watching them all for any attempt at escape. 

“You murdered my father, for that I will see you pay,” T’Challa growled at Barnes.

Sam choked and if Tony had been there ‘The Princess Bride’ would certainly have been brought up, regardless of appropriateness.

“I don’t do that-“ Bucky began only for Steve to cut him off, declaring, “Bucky’s innocent!”

“Stevie, shut your goddamn mouth!” Bucky barked, to everyone’s surprise. “I can talk for myself. ‘Sides you saying your pal didn’t do it don’t mean a damn thing to anyone!”

“You don’t deserve being hunted like some animal,” Steve protested, looking hurt.

Bucky grimaced. “I remember this,” he said. “You spouting off whatever you think like it’s the Word of God. It ain’t persuasive, ‘less you mean how it convinces folks to punch you in the yap.” 

“So you admit it?” T’Challa demanded.

“Hell no,” Bucky replied. “I’ve been in Bucharest nearly a month now. Only learned ‘bout the bombing when I saw my picture on the front page a couple hours back.”

“You expect me to believe that?” T’Challa scoffed.

“Naw but it’s the truth,” Bucky stated, meeting the young king’s eyes squarely. “And why would I have set that bomb? All I’ve done since slipping HYDRA’s leash is try to stay off the radar. Blowing up UN meetings that haven’t got a thing to do with me don’t exactly do me any favors.”

T’Challa’s accusing gaze shifted to Steve. “Nothing to do with you perhaps,” he said. “But you are the Captain’s storied companion and HE opposed the Sokovia Accords, the ratification of which your bomb disrupted. And yet, for all that he was against the Accords, Captain Rogers did not come to Vienna to tell the world of the reasons they should NOT sign. The Captain ‘blew off’ the world’s concerns and thus was far away when the UN Assembly was attacked.” 

“Watch what you’re insinuating!” Sam exclaimed as Steve simply stared in disbelief. “Steve was at his girl’s funeral. Give him a break, there was nothing suspicious about him not showing up in Vienna.”

“The world demands answers for the those who died on your captain’s watch. It demands change. And he took a personal day.” T’Challa shook his head bitterly, “And you wonder that sixty percent of the world found common ground to create laws for you?”

“Sixty percent isn’t that large a majority,” Sam replied.

“True… Shall we discuss the 25% who would not sign because they want absolute guarantees that teams of American Enhanced will not be allowed to invade their countries?” T’Challa asked. “To provide the sort of ‘help’ that the people of Lagos, Sokovia and Johannesburg are still trying to recover from?” He shook his head, “The people of Sokovia may hate you the most but there are others less desperate to see something done about you and thus more willing to hold a hard line.” 

“I’d never attack a civilian gathering!” Steve sputtered, regaining his voice. “NEVER, how can you even suggest that?!? Besides, Natasha was there.”

“And you would never endanger one of your own?” T’Challa asked. 

“What the hell are you implying now?” Sam snapped.

“I am merely wondering how the world’s self-proclaimed protector weights the good of HIS people against the good of the rest of us,” T’Challa said smugly. He nodded toward their guards, “I am certain these men, as well as the citizens of Bucharest and Lagos would like to hear the answer as well.”

“And what about you, your Majesty?” Steve shot back. “How much of the damage done to Bucharest can be laid on your wrongful quest for revenge?”

“I do not claim to act on behalf of the world,” T’Challa replied. “Only on behalf of Wakanda and they cry for justice. For their brothers and sisters killed by your carelessness in Lagos, for their murdered king.”

“Yeah right,” Sam snorted. “If Wakanda was behind you, where are your bodyguards? This is your personal vendetta.”

“And Bucky didn’t do it!” Steve couldn’t help but throw in.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Stevie,” he said warningly. “Look, King T’Challa, I didn’t get no order from Stevie. I’ve been hiding from him as much as from HYDRA for these last couple years.”

Steve’s look could have made kicked puppy-dogs feel sorry for him.

“You shouldn’t need a keeper any more, Punk,” Bucky said unrepentantly. “And I wanted the time to sort out who I was for myself.”

“I don’t believe you,” T’Challa replied.

“Don’t really care,” Bucky replied. His eyes turned toward their guards. “But it gives them something to look into. I was in Bucharest at the time of the bombing. Got my groceries in the market like I did every other day for the last twenty-seven. Stevie and his bunch have been looking for me ever since D.C., moved on from Marrakesh thirty-four days ago ‘cause I wind someone was looking for me, thought it was them.” 

_And maybe, in this Adjoining Universe, T’Challa would have pull his head out of his ass a little sooner and not gone after Team!Cap with blood in his eyes at Leipzig. But T’Challa’s vendetta wasn’t the biggest problem there, it was just an excuse for Natasha to taser him (after she brought him onto the team in the first place)._

_Bucky doesn’t have a choice about Berlin._

_Maybe Tony takes the leads Bucky handed over and proves Bucky’s innocence in Vienna sooner but after Berlin he’d still need to bring them in for Bucharest and Berlin. Because resisting arrest is still resisting arrest even if your innocent of what you were being arrested for._

_If Steve believes (or wants to prove) that the Accords obstruct heros from doing what’s necessary he still can’t let Tony bring in Zemo. And this is the Adjoining Universe, Sam might say something but he’s not actually going to go against Steve. Bucky’s got no one but Sam and Steve to turn to for information on the Accords so if they say they’ll keep them from stopping the Winter Core he’s likely to believe it._


	10. Moms Rule

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in canon Steve and Sam burst into Bucky’s cell after Zemo activates him in Berlin: 
> 
> Steve Rogers: [Steve finds Zemo in a heap inside the chamber.] Get up. [he grabs Zemo and shoves him against the wall.] Who are you? What do you want?  
> Helmut Zemo: To see an empire fall.
> 
> And then Steve and Sam get busy with Bucky and escaping themselves, allowing Zemo, who they KNOW is a bad guy, to escape as well. This leaves Sharon as the only person who might realize that Zemo was fishy but she’s probably too busy stealing Steve and Sam’s gear for them to pass the info on since Tony only realizes the psychiatrist was a fake after the real Broussard’s body is found. It’s lucky for Zemo’s plan that he’s dealing with the Keystone Kops.

_Back to the Good Communication Universe:_

Tony backed away from Rhodey’s bed when Happy escorted Roberta Rhodes into the room. “He’s going to be okay,” Tony babbled. “Not even a year ago the injuries would have been crippling but with the advancements Dr. Cho’s been able to make to her cradle since she started collaborating… Well getting hints from Shuri in Wakanda… Just as soon as he’s stable enough to travel we’ll get him fixed up. It’s going to be okay…”

“Tony, take a breath,” Roberta instructed. 

“Mrs. Rhodes?” FRIDAY broke in, her voice sounding incongruous and painfully young coming from the War Machine armor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t protect him.”

Tony’s shoulders slumped, “Oh baby girl, it wasn’t your fault.”

“You put me in charge of the armors, I’m supposed to protect you and the Colonel and Ms. Potts,” FRIDAY protested. “But I wasn’t there when the bomb went off and… I sent the armors as soon as I saw but it was too late.”

“Right,” Tony said firmly. “You did everything you could just as soon as you saw what had happened. I never programed you for precognition. It wasn’t your fault you didn’t know someone was going to attack a fucking UN assembly.”

Roberta gave Tony a tiny smile as she claimed the seat by her son’s bed. “You listen to your daddy,” she told FRIDAY. Then to Tony she added, “And Tony, she’ll hear you better if you take that advice yourself. I know you’re doing everything possible for my Jim. So stop beating yourself up for not being able to do more, right this minute.” 

“Yes ma’am,” Tony replied smartly. He pulled up a second chair and sat down beside Roberta.

* * *

In hotel room a mask with Bucky Barnes’ likeness lay discarded in the trash. A man stood in front of a mirror, straightening his wig. The room phone rang, “Dr. Broussard, your car is here,” the woman at the front desk told him.

“Thank you, I’ll be right down,” the man said. He walked into the bathroom and plucked a pair of glasses off the body hidden in the tub then settled them on his face. 

At the JCTC, Thaddeus Ross found Steve in a glass-walled office overlooking the control room. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said with a smirk. “It’s taking a while to sort out exactly what we’re charging you with. Romania is scrambling to assess the damages to their overpass. The doctors are still assessing the officers you assaulted and the civilians you trampled…. No one dead yet, although not everyone is out of surgery as of my last check, so there’s a chance to add murder charges. The soldiers were German, the civilians were Romanian and the two countries are arguing over who has the better claim to your hide. Now, my personal feeling is that soldiers you assaulted in the performance of their duties deserve justice… But at the same time I’d love to see you try to claim self-defense about the dozens of civilians you injured when you brought that underpass down on top of them.” 

“I was trying to do what was right,” Steve said firmly. “I knew Bucky wasn’t responsible for the bombing. And it turns out he wasn’t even there.”

“Yeah, Barnes,” Ross flipped through a chart. “Good news for your buddy. We sent some preliminary scans of his brain to Stark’s group, turns out that Sgt. Barnes and that girl they found have some matching brain damage. Betty’s science mumbo-jumbo has been a little beyond me since she her first year at college but something about neuron pathways that have been overdeveloped, drug-enhanced Pavlovian conditioning, Temporal lobe suppression, et cetera, et cetera. It looks like your buddy has a pretty good case, aided of course, by the way he turned himself in without a fight. Longest held POW ever and with the evidence that his brain’s been through a blender there’s already pressure to forgive his fugitive act of the last few years. Lawyers are lining up to defend him, Wakanda’s Queen Mother has withdrawn their petition to extradite him… You on the other hand,” Ross grinned, like a predator showing its teeth.

“I was defending Bucky. You would have killed him and he was innocent,” Steve insisted. “You know that now. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you,” Ross said gleefully. “But you can have good intentions and still get on the wrong side of the law. Twenty plus people injured, massive property damage… And Lagos still hanging over your head. You know all this namby-pamby “Rights and Responsibilities of the Enhanced” bullshit? After this gets out the public is going to be begging me to get you people under control.” 

“You might be able to get governments with agendas on your side Ross but the people know who they can trust to defend them,” Steve retorted.

Ross laughed. “Rogers, ‘the people’ expect more guarantees of competence and accountability from a fifteen-year-old with a learner’s permit than you ‘superheroes’ offer. Speaking of teenagers, have the Maximoff twins killed anyone else lately?”

Downstairs the guards ushered a nondescript psychologist into Bucky’s cell to begin his assessment.

* * *

“We are going home,” Romonda told her son sternly. “Your people need you. Your sister needs what’s left of her family together.”

T’Challa stared at the floor as he nodded. “Yes mother.”

“You will thank Okoye most humbly for dealing with the diplomacy that you so despise but which is your job and not hers,” Romonda continued. “It was her who smoothed over the possible international repercussions of your actions.”

Suddenly the lights went out. “Wait here Mother,” T’Challa said as he cautiously opened the door.

“T’Challa!” Romonda called but it was too late to stop him. She shook her head then touched one of the Kimoyo Beads on her bracelet. 

“Yes, my Queen?” Okoye asked. 

“T’Challa has gone to see about this power outage,” Romonda sighed.

“I have just secured the return of his body armor,” Okoye sounded troubled. “He has no protection… I’ve dispatched Ayo and Teela to intercept him. Nareema and I will be at your side shortly.”

“Thank you,” Romonda said gravely.

“My Queen?” Okoye said the faint shift in her breathing giving away that she was running. “He is still young.”

Romonda’s shoulders sagged, “And it should have been years before he stood as anything more than the King’s champion. But such is the world we live in. T’Challa must assume the mantle of kingship now, Wankada cannot wait for him to be ready.”

_The fight goes pretty much the same as before only May replaces Natasha and T’Challa’s bodyguards help her not get killed by the Winter Soldier as neither Tony nor Sam are in the building._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony's busy worrying about Rhodes, he's not spending his time trying to convince Steve to let him bail Steve out after Bucharest.


	11. Assembling Team!Cap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between the JCTC fight and Leipzig there are a lot of changes where stuff doesn’t happen: Tony doesn’t go to T. Ross for a chance to bring Steve in alive. He also doesn’t go to Queens to recruit Peter (I’m probably going to throw in Tony and Peter meeting as an after credits style scene or something). Sam wasn’t at Bucharest so he wasn’t arrested, so he wasn’t at the JCTC so he didn’t escape with Steve and Bucky, so there’s no one to tell Steve not to call Tony, but without Sam there…

Wanda and Pietro stumbled through Maria Hill’s evening check in. “I think training went well today,” she said cheerfully.

“Thank you,” Wanda choked out, past the shame clawing at her gut. In her head she heard the dark purring voice that KEPT calling, _“It isn’t easy, is it? Developing a light touch. Minds are like… butterflies aren’t they? How many did you crush in your hands before you learned control? They kept you in a cage didn’t they, HYDRA. To keep themselves safe from your powers while they shoved poor little victims in with you, to practice on. Butterflies, for you to tear the wings off. What will your protectors do when it comes out? Staring empty eyes, slack mouths, breathing, yes, but as good as dead. Crushed butterflies, staining your powers scarlet with their blood. What will they do when they know how the butterflies piled up around your feet as thick as the falling leaves?”_

Hill looked at the miserable looking twins for a long moment. She tried to smile reassuringly but the expression didn’t sit naturally on her face. “I don’t think there’s been much of an increase in the number protestors marching outside the Compound. That’s actually a good sign, given Bucharest,” she said.

Pietro glanced towards the window. Flickering red reflecting off the walls of the Compound gave away that the protesters were burning Wanda in effigy again. _“They’re sharpening pitchforks, building their resolve, burying their fear beneath hate. How long before they come for you?”_ the voice purred in his memories.

“I think they just like the bonfires,” Hill offered.

After Hill left the twins sat in Wanda’s bedroom with her phone on the bed between them. “We should tell Hill about HIM,” Pietro said.

“She’d throw us to the mob herself if she knew half of what HE knows,” Wanda whispered, her eyes never leaving the phone.

* * *

Steve closed his eyes for a moment, against the sight of the industrial press he’d used to hold Bucky prisoner until he could be sure it was Bucky and not the Winter Soldier he was dealing with. He closed them against the knowledge Bucky had imparted: The Winter Core and what they could do in the wrong hands, in any hands at all. 

Steve pulled out his phone and dialed.

“Cap, what’s going on?” Clint asked cautiously.

“I need help,” Steve said. “Bucky told me about a threat; a unit of super soldiers in the hands of the man who _really_ bombed the UN. He said he wanted to bring down an empire! And with the Winter Core, Bucky says he could do it.”

“I know Rhodes is out of commission but have you called May or Stark?” Clint asked.

“I can’t!” Steve exclaimed.

“Or Hill,” Clint added.

“Ross has them under his thumb,” Steve protested. “He’s manipulating this whole situation to get control over the Enhanced!”

Clint glanced across the room to where his two kids were clustered around his heavily pregnant wife. He’d wanted a third kid for years but Laura always protested that she couldn’t handle a pregnancy on top of the farm and the two kids they already had, not by herself anyway. “Sorry Cap, I’m retired,” Clint said. “Get over yourself, call Stark.”

Steve looked back at Bucky as the dial tone buzzed in his ear. He thought about T’Challa going after Bucky, Rhodes lying in the hospital and Tony’s parents, killed by the Winter Soldier. ‘I can’t call Tony.’ He called Sam.

“No,” Sam said once he heard Steve’s explanation.

“God knows what sort of damage this guy will do with power like that!” Steve exclaimed.

“Why does it have to be you and Barnes that stop him?” Sam asked. “This guy’s got less than an hour’s lead right now. Tell me where this Winter Core is, I’ll call Hill. With her contacts we can get a team in before he even gets there, take this Winter Core captive while they’re still frozen, unless they’re in Germany. We can deal with the mastermind whenever he shows his ugly mug.”

“You can’t do that!” Steve protested.

“Why not?”

“No one should have the Winter Core,” Steve insisted. “Given Ross’ history with the Hulk would you trust him with any variant of Super Soldier Serum? Would you trust ANY government?”

“What are you planning on doing with them then?” Sam asked. “Hide the cryo chambers? Keep them frozen forever? Kill them and burn the bodies?”

“You’d do it for Riley,” Steve accused.

For a long moment Sam said nothing. Steve almost expected him to hang-up on him. Then, in a very guarded voice, Sam asked, “What do you mean, I’d do it for Riley?” 

“That doctor, the one from Berlin, he can clear Bucky but they won’t care. Not like I do. And if Bucky, if Bucky stops whatever it is that he’s got planned, if he helps stop this ‘Winter Core’, everyone will see that he’s not like them. If he saves the day they’ll leave him alone!”

“Steve, that’s crazy talk,” Same said. “Tell me where the Winter Core is so we can get this dealt with before anyone gets hurt.”

Steve hung up.

* * *

Stark Towers had defenses, they could have fought but, after what happened in Berlin, Secretary Ross’ men had an Executive Order to take the faceless woman in Hulk-room into their custody. The woman herself could have fought, unarmed and cornered, she still could have put up a hell of a fight, but in the time she’d been there a bond of trust had formed between her and the three women trying to help her regain her past. Dr. Cho asked her not to fight, to let them fight for her within the system and she surrendered quietly. 

The government vans carrying the woman had barely pulled away from Stark Towers when Wanda’s phone rang at the Compound. “They came for the Winter Soldier, the Captain has taken him and fled,” the voice purred. “They came for the lost S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, they’ll hide her away, take her apart again just to learn how HYDRA did it. I doubt she’ll be seen again. How long will it be before they come for you?”

* * *

“Pep, Darcy, Hill focus on old Soviet Bloc countries,” Tony instructed. “We know there’s a connection between the Winter Soldier and this Winter Core and maybe the Soldier was the Fist of HYDRA but his branch of HYDRA was a KGB parasite. Rogers wouldn’t give up the location but odds are someone with ties to the old U.S.S.R. has that information in a dusty file somewhere. We need to know where before fake-Dr. Broussard gets there. Hell, even if they don’t tell us they might stop him themselves and I would be happy with that.”

Pepper nodded, already reaching for her phone.

“J.A.R.V.I.S. is watching the internet for any sign of trouble. May, Vision, Wilson, you and I are the team. If the Winter Core goes active, we’re all that’s available to take them down. The four of us against five crazy, kill happy super soldiers... Yeah, not my idea of fun either. I called King T’Challa to see if he might back us and it’s a firm maybe. Jones said she had a couple of friend and by morning they should be on standby at the Tower to even up the odds but, for the moment, it’s just us.”

“If they go active, we can count on Steve and his buddy to have our backs,” Sam said.

“Would that be the same buddy fake-Broussard pulled a Manchurian Candidate with back at the JCTC?” Tony asked. “Thanks but no thanks. If Steve picks up a call from you, ‘cause he’s not talking to me, tell him to keep Barnes as far from the action as he can. The last thing we need is the original Winter Soldier reverting type.” 

Tony’s phone rang, “Can’t we have one crisis at a time?” he demanded after a few moments. He took a deep breath and put the phone on speaker. “Ross’ people made a move on our Mystery Lady. So we’re going to have to divide our efforts a little,” he told the group in Germany. “The legal team will take the lead with her, question the constitutionality of the executive order…” He spoke to the phone, “Jones, if you’ve got a name that’d be great. PR could probably use a nice ‘before’ picture, if S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited her from the military, great, a shot of her in uniform, if not try to get her in her cap and gown, I don’t care if it’s college or high school. If we can get ‘All-American girl abandoned by country, finally home and now our government is tormenting her, taking her away from the help she was receiving,’ that’s great. Also, I want to know where they took her. I want to park a lawyer with a video camera uploading directly to JARVIS’s servers beside her until we get this in front of a judge. But I want to know where she is before tripping our hand that we’re not not going to be rolling over for them.”

“Good thing I put a tracker on her then,” Dr. Cho said.

“You are wonderful!” Tony exclaimed. “Okay, Pep let Legal and PR know what’s coming. FRIDAY, you monitor the tracker. When she stops moving alert me and I’ll go rattle cages. In the meantime, we’ve still got a bunch of rogue Super Soldier to locate and corral, Rogers and Barnes included.”

* * *

Steve remembered several months earlier: A guy with shrinking powers had broken into the Compound to steal a signal decoy. They’d tracked the tech down afterwards and upon learning what Hank Pym had wanted it for Rhodes had sent Steve to give a stern “Stealing is wrong, even if you want it for a good cause and have issues with the father of the guy who owns it” speech. 

Steve had felt like he was doing another one of those PSA films he’d been conned into doing. Lang apologizing abjectly while slipping him a scrap of paper with his phone number like some starry-eyed fan hadn’t helped. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, Steve’s eidetic memory meant he could recall that phone number and the guy _had_ taken Sam in a fight. He called.

“Mr. Lang, this is Steve Rogers. I need your help.”

Twenty minutes later Steve got Scott calmed down enough to explain what he needed, he never did get around to why.

Asking Lang to drop by the Compound and break the twins out had been a hard choice. Steve wasn’t unaware of how young they were and what thin ice they were on. But if the Winter Core weren’t stopped…

* * *

“The Captain will call for you soon,” the voice purred to the twins. “He will take his Soldier and flee from those who won’t forgive the sins he was unable to keep himself from committing. Your sins will be known soon, all too soon. You should go when he calls… And if you do go, when Stark comes after you, you’ll have the venance your family has been crying for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me as I’m writing this chapter that Loki’s logic in wanting to destroy Jotunheim and Steve’s logic in wanting Bucky to be one of the heroes to stop the Winter Core might have some commonalities.
> 
> And I moved the timing of Laura's pregnancy back a little. Better communication: Laura telling Clint upfront that three kids and a farm is too much for her alone, rather than getting pregnant and hoping he'd stay home and help.


	12. In an Adjoining Universe:  Do You Disagree with me on Principle?

Moving this chapter and other "In Adjoining Universe" chapters to a separate story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about pulling out the "In an Adjoining Universe" chapters and making them a separate fic because bad communication is epidemic in CACW.


	13. Leipzig

“Thank you for allowing us access to your files,” Maria Hill told the Russia President. In the background Tony groused, “It’s all paper! This is going to take forever.” Hill smiled thinly, “We really do appreciate this… Even if some of us left their manners in their other suit.”

“We want this Winter Core apprehended as much as anyone,” the President replied. “Unfortunately the KGB did not leave their files in good order. We have also tightened security at our borders and airports.”

“Thank you,” Hill said again. “If we can stop him before the Winter Core is activated many fewer lives will be endangered.”

“Yes, one only need look to Bucharest or Berlin to see the devastation that a rogue super soldier can inflict.”

“We’re searching for Rogers and Barnes as well,” Hill assured him.

* * *

“When Captain America calls you don’t ask why,” Scott declared.

“Yes you do Scott, you really do,” Hope sighed. She took the binoculars from Scott to get a better look at the Compound and the angry protesters outside.

“So why did you come?” Scott asked.

“Because he ditched his phone and…” Hope sighed again. “He is Captain America. So we’ll help these two sneak past the protesters, get to Germany- Quietly, mind you- And ask him what’s going on. If this is a genuine emergency then we help.” 

Scott hopped up on his ant’s back and Hope flew alongside using her own wings. The residential wing of the Compound was deserted except for two people huddled together in front of a TV showing intervenes, a year later, of those who’d been caught in crossfire in Johannesburg and how the devastation there was still affecting their lives. “They’re barely more than kids,” Scott whispered to Hope.

“Are we sure they’re the ones you’re supposed to bring?” Hope asked.

Scott pointed to the locked harness holding a dim blue device in the center of the girl’s chest. “That’s what Captain America described,” he said. “I guess it kills her powers or something if she goes outside.” Then he went full sized.

Wanda screamed, red mist swirled through the room, several knives yanked themselves out of the butcherblock in the kitchen and zoomed across the room towards Scott. He squeaked in terror as he felt his arms yanked behind his back and a cold voice, despite the cracking of puberty asked, “Are you HIM?”

Scott gulped, his gaze fixed on the knives floating in front of his face. “Captain America sent me… To rescue you, I guess.”

“Can we trust him?” Pietro asked.

“Yes!” Scott exclaimed. “I’m very trustworthy!”

Wanda’s phone rang. The twins both froze. Scott took advantage of the moment and shrank out of sight. “Come back!” Wanda cried as the phone continued to ring. She let the knives clatter to the floor. 

Hope gave Scott an exasperated look. She zipped over to hover behind Wanda then nodded to him. Scott took the precaution of putting some distance and the kitchen island between himself and the twins before re-growing. “I’m still here,” he said. “So who’s this ‘he’?” 

“HE calls us,” Pietro said, “every night. He- he knows everything. They hate us. We didn’t- it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“We’ll never be able to make amends,” Wanda said, anger sparking beneath the fear. “So what’s the point. Everyone wants us dead, HE’s coming for us...” Red mist twirled around her fingers as she wrung her hands.

“Easy, easy,” Scott said. “We’re going to take you to Captain America, everything’s going to be okay.”

“If we leave the Compound our powers are bound, we’ll be helpless,” Pietro pointed out.

“Yeah well, I have some skill at lock picking,” Scott said.

Hope groaned and resized herself. “You also have powers,” she said. “Stand on one foot,” she told Pietro then attacked a Pym Disk and expanded his anklet to the size of a tire. Pietro stepped out of it easily.

* * *

“Baby Girl, you might want to double check your data,” Tony told FRIDAY. “According to this she’s in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean… and about two hundred feet below sea level.”

“I have double checked Boss,” FRIDAY protested. “And done a fly-by with a drone, J.A.R.V.I.S. approved it.”

“You couldn’t have led with that?” Tony asked. “Good job taking initiative by the way. So what’d you get on the sonar?”

“A large installation, like four times the size of a Helicarrier large, just under the surface.”

“Get a helicopter prepped. Who does Pepper have from Legal?”

“Corrigall and Meeker, they did the most work keeping Iron Man on the right side of the law while you were getting started,” FRIDAY volunteered.

“Excellent choices, tell Jones’ lawyer friend to bring his suit, not the one with horns, an ace in the hole is always nice and if we don’t need it he’s got something interesting to put on his resume. I’m going to go have a talk with Secretary Ross, maybe he’ll surprise me and be reasonable.”

“Before I get started, J? Anything on the Winter Core front?” Tony asked.

“No sign of countries being overthrown at present,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. 

“Okay then,” Tony said. He pulled his suit jacket on and headed for the JCTC. 

“Oh, and Boss, we got a name for Mystery Lady,” FRIDAY added.

* * *

Tony ignored various attempts to redirect him and marched straight up to Ross where he stood in the middle of the control room. “Secretary! You mind explaining what my government is doing, bursting into my house and seizing my guest?”

“After the way Barnes tore through the JCTC yesterday I’d think you’d be thanking me for taking such a threat off your hands,” Thaddeus Ross replied.

“You mean after you let a fake psychiatrist have access to Barnes and after your barbaric restraints failed to keep him contained?” Tony asked. “I’ve had Ms. Palamas as a guest for nearly two weeks and you were the only incident in that time… Did Barnes make the twenty-four hour mark in your custody?”

Ross glared. “What do you want Stark? I’m a busy man.”

“It’s not so much what I want as it’s what my, or should I say Ms. Palamas’ lawyers want,” Tony replied. 

“Who?” Ross asked.

“For shame, didn’t you even get a name on the arrest warrant?” Tony replied. “Actually, have you arrested her or taken her into protective custody? If it’s the former, what are you charging her with? The later? Well, I’ll be contesting whether or not you’re better equipped to treat her than S.U.D.D.S. And of course her legal team will require access to her… Quite a bit of access, you should prepare for them to basically move in. For some reason, can’t imagine what, secret prisons under the ocean raise alarms for them… I wouldn’t be surprised if they want the full tour, just to make sure no human rights violations are taking place.”

“Send your lawyers,” Ross said distractedly. “I’ll roll out the red carpet shall I? Maybe leave a cell open for them to sleep in?”

“That was much too easy. Why do you want me out of here?” Tony looked around the command center. His eyes widened as he saw Sharon Carter leading a team to confront Steve Rogers at the Leipzig Airport. “Are you crazy!” he exclaimed. “Are you deliberately _trying_ to recreate Bucharest?”

“This time they won’t break containment,” Ross said smugly. “And this time, everyone there knows what Steve Rogers truly stands for.”

Tony ran out of the command center. “FRIDAY send the armor,” he said into his phone. “May, Vision, Wilson - Leipzig. Ross is sending a special ops team against Rogers. He’s not actually stupid enough to expect this to turn out differently from Bucharest, so odds are he wants another Enhanced vs baseline soldiers debacle splashed across the headlines. He’s going to get his headline but I don’t want it to read ‘Captain America runs roughshod over law enforcement officers’. At least if we’re fighting each other the people watching know that some of us are still fighting for them.”

* * *

“Sharon,” Steve said in surprise when he saw Peggy’s niece at the airport. He’d expected a confrontation but- But not her. Even more confusing was the shield on her arm. “How did you know I was here?” he asked.

“You know, I believe in S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Sharon said. “In what Aunt Peggy built, in what she _meant_ it to be. But I thought you were different, special. Because she loved you.”

Steve shook his head, “Sharon, you’re not making any sense. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mission Steve,” Sharon said. “Secretary Ross told me to give you the rope. It was up to you whether or not you hung yourself with it. I thought you were different.” She lifted the shield a bit. “I thought you stood for something.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“Bucharest. Berlin. People died Steve. And you could have stopped it but you had other priorities,” Sharon accused. “There are things out there that the world isn’t ready to handle yet. S.H.I.E.L.D. was created to protect the world from things like that, from things like you. The Enhanced need to be kept under control! Rhodes and Stark, they’d have us believe you can police yourselves,” Sharon shook her head. “But if even you can’t be trusted to remember us, then none of the Enhanced can be trusted… Open Fire!”

Steve lunged forward, he grabbed both Sharon and his shield, yanking it up to deflect the sniper bullet aimed at his head. 

A moment later he saw the sniper suddenly slump, unconscious. “I thought you were leaving?” Steve said into his comm.

Wasp responded tartly, “I didn’t like what she was saying about ‘controlling’ us.” 

“Okay, okay,” Steve said as shoved Sharon away and ran for cover, “Pietro, the quinjet?”

“Hanger five, north runway,” Pietro replied. “I could have searched the whole airport three times while you two were jawing.”

“Wanda, take down the rest of the snipers. Bucky make sure she spots them all,” Steve ordered. “Pietro, get the plane warmed up. We’re leaving.”

A red mist swept through the airport and J-SOC agents were tossed around as if by a hurricane. A machine gun was ripped from one agent’s hand and went off as it struck the pavement. Sharon went down with a gasp of shock. Steve turned and saw her hands locked around her thigh, blood pumping out around them. “Wanda, stop! Just knock them out or something,” Steve ordered.

Out of nowhere the Falcon swooped down and grabbed Sharon, taking her out of the combat zone. 

Iron Man landed heavily in front of Steve. “Steve, stand down now,” Tony ordered. “Before more people get hurt.”

Vision floated down with May. 

“Hear me out, Tony. That doctor, the psychiatrist, he's behind all of this,” Steve pled. 

“Wilson mentioned that, like, yesterday,” Tony snapped. “Clint called to relay the same fucking story. We’re all over that. ‘Course it would be easier if you told ANYONE where the guy was headed.” 

“Why are you doing this Tony? If you know it’s not Bucky’s fault?” Steve asked.

“I’m doing it because of Berlin, because your old war buddy can be turned back into a remorseless killing machine in forty-five seconds flat,” Tony exclaimed. “Innocent people are dead! I’m doing it because YOU hurt civilians when you tore across Bucharest chasing your goddamn security blanket.”

Wilson returned from dumping Sharon with the medics and fell in beside Tony, May and Vision.

“You need to let us help Tony,” Steve said sincerely. “There are five more super soldiers just like the Winter Soldier. I can't let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can't.”

“Then stop wasting my time Steve,” Tony said. “You’re forcing me to divert resources from the Doctor to chase you.”

“I have to prove Vienna and Berlin were him, were the Doctor, not Bucky,” Steve said. 

“We know that!” Tony shouted.

“Bucky needs a chance to show the world he’s one of the good guys,” Steve continued. “The Winter Soldier? That’s not him, that’s something that was done to him.”

“Prove it in a fucking courtroom! Prove it with Dr. Cho’s scans of his brain!” 

Steve shook his head, “They’ll just think Bucky is crazy. You want to lock him up because you think he’s not safe-”

“Ask the dead people in Berlin: He’s not safe!” Tony interjected.

Steve kept talking over him. “My Bucky, the real Bucky is still in there. If he helps to stop the Doctor the world will see that.” 

“No matter what you do, he’s going to be locked up until someone can deal with his trigger words,” Tony told Steve. “He is less than a minute away from being the weapon who murdered my parents!”

“So that’s what was this is all about,” Steve accused. “I knew you blamed him!”

“Another fake Doctor walks up to him in the street and sends him on another rampage? That’s a risk you’re willing to take. Of course, you can protect yourself if he goes nuts, the rest of us can’t!”

“So I’ll stop him from hurting anyone else,” Steve insisted. “Bucky doesn’t deserve this!”

“Life isn’t fair, deal with it!” Tony threw up his hands in exasperation.

“I am dealing with it, I’m fixing it!” Steve shouted back.

“You’re fixing it for yourself and the hell with the rest of us!” Tony exclaimed. “Okay, that’s it. That’s your chance to be reasonable. Vision, grab the brats, put ‘em in time out. May, Wilson, find the Soldier.” His face plate snapped shut. “Rogers, this is the very last time I ask you to surrender nicely.”

As Iron Man stalked towards Captain America and the others scattered a truck came flying out of nowhere, growing larger as it did. “Tony!” May shouted turning back. 

Iron Man was engulfed in a massive ball of flames. “Scott!” Wasp shouted accusingly in Ant-Man’s ear, still small, although Scott had regrown to throw the shrunken truck.

“I thought it was a water truck!” Ant-Man protested, staring at the flames in shock. 

A small missile flew out of the flames, aim precisely in the direction the truck had come from. Ant-Man eeped and shrunk to let it fly past him to explode in the side of the parking garage. In retaliation a number of cars, outlined in a scarlet glow flew out of the parking garage, some of them on fire, and launched themselves at Iron Man 

“I told you not to go full sized!” Wasp hissed as she landed beside Ant-Man. 

Ant-Man winced, “I thought I could help.”

“What that woman was saying creeped me out,” Wasp replied. “But I don’t think we should be in this fight. Rogers never gave a satisfactory reason for why he didn’t call Stark and- And Stark’s making more sense than anyone else here.” 

“But Hank said never trust a-”

“Dad has issues, I’d have thought you’d have figured that out by now,” Wasp snapped.

“Still, you told Cap we’d help,” Ant-Man said. “Seems sort of wrong to walk out on a guy in the middle of a fight. I mean they’re counting on us.” 

“I don’t know that we did the _right_ thing, taking those kids out of the Avengers’ custody,” Wasp argued. 

“And now we’ve got to look out for them,” Ant-Man insisted.

“Scott, we screwed up,” Wasp said. “The best thing for those kids is to be taken down fast, before they get hurt or hurt someone else.”

Vision phased through the floor of the garage, coming up on through the floor to the level where the cars targeting Iron Man were coming from. There was no sign of the Scarlet Witch, he looked around as another car took on a red glow and lifted off the ground. On an neighboring building, the Witch used the sniper-scope from the Winter Soldier’s rifle to pick her projectiles. Vision frowned and flew towards her. “Wanda and Sgt. Barnes are on the roof of the hanger,” he reported. 

Falcon took to the air, speeding past Vision. He made a grab for the Soldier’s collar but Barnes twisted under his hand, caught Wilson’s ankle and sent him rolling across the rooftop. Falcon scrabbled at the concrete and kept himself from going over the side but only by the smallest margins.

“Wanda, you must stop this,” Vision said as he confronted the young witch.

“I won’t!” the Witch exclaimed as she lunged for Vision. “We will stop these super-soldier and then the world will understand that it is us, not Stark who are the heroes.”

To the Synthoid’s shock he felt Wanda’s magic racing along pathways made familiar as they’d often practiced their powers together. The Witch took ruthless advantage of that familiarity and seized control of Vision’s reflexes, driving him to increase his density until he crashed through the roof below him and the levels below that, until he final struck bedrock. 

While Wanda was distracted by Vision, the rain of cars pelting Iron Man finally eased. He kicked one of the battered hulls off him and looked around for Captain America.

On the Quinjet Quicksilver fidgeted at super-speeds. “It’s on, I should be doing something.”

“You are doing something,” Captain America said quickly. “You’re securing our transportation. The quicker we get out of here, the less damage that we do, the better.”

“Then you’re all taking too long,” the speedster complained.

On the roof, the Falcon used Red Wing to butt the Soldier away from him and got back into the air. Barnes grabbed the little drone with his metal fist and crushed one of its wings then tossed it over the side of the building carelessly. “Cold dude!” Wilson exclaimed as he launched several stun grenades at the Soldier. Barnes dove off the roof just ahead of the explosions, he dug his fingers into the corrugated metal covering the hanger and used the leverage to control his fall.

On the other side of the roof the Wasp landed in the Witch’s ear and walked inside planning to knock the girl unconscious by an attack on her inner ear. “No!” the Witch exclaimed, sensing Wasp’s hostile intentions. She lashed out with her mental powers even as she used her telekinesis to shove everything away from her. 

The Wasp regrew as she tumbled through the air, completely out of control. “Hope!” Scott shouted in alarm. He grew, and grew to gigantic proportions, lunging to catch her. Falcon also flew after the falling woman. 

“What the fuck!” Iron Man exclaimed as he dodged out of the way of a massive foot. 

“Stevie, gotta go now,” the Soldier order. “While they’re busy. The Doctor’s probably in Siberia by now and you said we can’t trust _anybody_ else with the Core.”

“That’s right,” Steve said. “HYDRA infiltrated Peggy’s S.H.I.E.L.D., they could be anywhere.” The two of them ran into the hanger only to find May standing between them and the quinjet. “Don’t make me hurt you,” Steve said. “You don’t stand a chance.”

May snapped out a pair of batons, “I don’t have to win, just slow you down.” 

Scott felt strangely light-headed as he continued growing, running and expanding to be able to catch Hope in time. His vision tunneled in, he didn’t even notice as he knocked the Falcon out of the sky, while reaching for Hope. Scott felt something smack into his outstretched hand. Hope lay cradled in the palm of his hand, she blurred in and out of focus as Scott squinted at her. He crashed to his knees. Even as his consciousness fled he pulled Hope close, keeping her safe as he fell. 

Iron Man intercepted Falcon as he fell. Metal screeched against as the flailing wings collided with Iron Man’s armor. Tony scrabbled for a good hold as they wheeled through the air.

In the hanger, May twisted and wove, she used her batons to deflect the thrown shield then crossed them to intercept a metal fist. Her feet skidded backwards at the collision. She rolled, then scissored Steve’s feet out from under him but his reflexes were too fast for her. He slammed his elbow into her as he fell and she’d begun to rise. May’s breath exploded in pained gasp. When she tried to force herself to her feet again Barnes struck her in the back of the head. He used his flesh arm but she still went down like a bag of rocks. The two soldiers ran up the gangway into the quinjet. “We’re leaving now,” Barnes told Quicksilver as he took the pilot’s seat.

“Wanda’s not here!” Pietro protested. 

“There’s no time,” Barnes insisted. “You’ve got no idea how much damage something like me can do.”

“No!” Pietro exclaim racing off the plane.

“Leave the door open,” Steve said as Barnes released the breaks. “Give him every moment.”

Vision rose out of the hole the Scarlet Witch had driven him into. “I thought you were my friend!” he shouted at Wanda. “And you use that against me?”

“I had to!” Wanda cried. “You all left, fussing about your stupid UN, while HE tormented us. So Pietro and I will protect ourselves, like we alway have. And if you get in my way, I’ll go through you.” She reached out with her powers again. Vision landed on the roof in front of her and backhanded her. Wanda tumbled back at the force of the blow. Vision stared down at her. Wanda touched her jaw, there was a spot of blood at the corner of her mouth. They both looked shocked. Before either could recover Pietro blurred through stealing Wanda away. 

Iron Man untangled himself from Wilson, the falcon wings were a bent, battered mess. “If giant-guy is Pym’s he’s tech based,” Tony said. “See if you can turn it off. Best guess, his powers are why he passed out.” 

Iron Man flew toward the hanger then dove to the side to keep from being run over as the quinjet flew out, almost skimming the ground to make it under the hanger door. Tony started to go after the jet then saw May sprawled across the concrete. He spun and fired all his remaining missiles at the departing jet but the Stark Industries armor plating on the quinjet proved superior to Stark Industries missiles. As the jet began to gain altitude Tony started to go after it then hesitated, glancing back at May.

* * *

On the jet Pietro set Wanda down as the rear hatch closed behind him. Steve turned and smiled at them, “I knew you’d make it.”

* * *

As Hope and Scott were handcuffed and led away by Thaddeus Ross’ men Tony looked around at his team and the swarming EMT’s. The medics were shining lights in May’s eyes and taping her ribs. One of Sam’s wings was too badly bent to fold and dragged on the ground behind him as he slung the pack over one shoulder as he dug through the rubble at the foot of the hanger. After a few minutes Sam unearthed Red Wing and dusted him off. The little drone made a sickly sounding beep as he tried to fire up his thrusters. “Can you fix him?” he asked Tony.

Tony nodded. “Yeah, naturally. Couple days in the shop and you’ll be good as new,” he promised the drone.

Vision floated down to join them, “I struck Wanda in anger,” he said.

“I didn’t know you could get angry,” Sam replied.

“Neither did I,” Vision sounded bewildered. “I don’t like it.”

Tony gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “We’re a sorry sight aren’t we,” he sighed.


	14. Look for Options

“So J,” Tony asked conversationally as he watched the jet trail from the Quinjet fade away. “Do you have a tracker on my plane?”

“An attempt was made to disable it,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. “I have allowed them to believe it was successful.”

“Rematch,” Tony said.

“And get our asses handed to us again!?” Sam asked in disbelief as he tried to fold his battered wings. May was being loaded into an ambulance and Vision simply looked lost.

“Well, gotta admit round one goes to them,” Tony sighed. “We weren’t ready for a fight. But, ready or not, we couldn’t NOT show. We couldn’t let people believe that they speak for all Enhanced, or even all the Avengers.”

“Won’t be enough, losing to make a point again,” Sam said.

“I suggest using the summons Thor offered you, as well as bringing in the Defenders and any others you might have thought of,” J.A.R.V.I.S. interjected. “You may have to fight the Winter Core as well as Roger’s renegade Avengers. It would be wise to take precautions.”

 

* * *

 

Under the North Atlantic Hope refused to pace her cell, she refused to give her capturers the satisfaction but she was worried. Scott had passed out the last time he went giant too and he’d been fine but last time he’d been checked out by doctor afterwards, he’d spent the night under medical supervision with an oxygen mask and an IV. This time he was locked in a cell in some secret underwater prison.

“Scott!” Hope called.

“Not so loud,” he groaned from the next cell over.

“Just checking,” Hope said. “You’d think they could have at least stuck you in the cell across the way so I could keep an eye on you.”

“Inconsiderate Gestapo. They haven’t offered to let us call a lawyer yet either,” Scott tried to make it sound like a joke but his worry leaked through.

The faceless woman who was in the cell across from Hope looked up, “This is an old S.H.I.E.L.D. prison,” she said. Then added in disgust, “Of all the memories to recover I get a prison drop, not my mother’s face or even my own, a prison drop.”

“You’re S.H.I.E.L.D.? Or I guess, you were S.H.I.E.L.D.? How’d you land yourself in here?” Scott asked.

The woman shrugged, “Same way you did probably.” The smile that crossed that featureless face made Hope’s skin crawl. “I’m not normal.”

“You can say that again,” Hope heard Scott mutter and wished he wasn’t on the other side of a wall. If he’d been in arm’s reach she certainly would have elbowed him for that… Or be taking his temperature with the back of her hand. _‘I don’t know what good it would do but I remember Mom doing that when I was sick.’_

“How long have you been held here?” Hope asked.

“Have we been disappeared?” Scott added.

“About twenty-four hours now,” the woman said. “And yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D. used to use this place for that. So I guess I’m waiting to see what sort of friends I’ve made… And if things are better with S.H.I.E.L.D. gone.” She touched the side of her unfinished face and added softly, “I was sacrificed when they brought S.H.I.E.L.D. down.”

“That… that’s gotta suck,” Scott said.

On that note the conversation petered out. The guards brought trays of food and took them away again an hour later. Later still several guards escorted a group of three men and a woman down into the cell block. Hope and Scott came to the front of their cells, curious but wary about the purpose behind the visit.

“If we do not see the entire facility, I’m afraid we’ll have to assume the worst,” the woman was saying as she came down the stairs, sounding stern and grandmotherly at the same time.

The older man nodded in agreement. “On behalf of our client we would have to raise some very serious questions with the American public.”

“Like why a place like this even exists,” one of the younger men, a curly haired blond added, full of righteous indignation.

Hope’s breath caught, she was certain she knew the blond. She studied the rest of the group more carefully. The other younger man carried a white cane, his eyes hidden by dark glasses.

“Ms. Palamas, I’m Ms. Corrigall and this is my associates Messrs. Meeker and Murdock,” the older woman said. “Stark Industries has assigned us to sort out all of this unpleasantness you’ve been subjected to as quickly as possible.”

“Palamas?” the faceless prisoner asked.

“Yes, Kara Lynn Palamas,” the older man, Meeker said. “Ms. Jones was able to recover your personnel file from before your capture."  The faceless woman’s eyes fixed hungrily on the file in the younger lawyer’s hand.

Meeker frowned at the guard when he made no move to open the woman’s cell for them. “You will allow me to pass along her own personal information, of course,” he said. “ Also our client should have some form of occupation, at the very least she should have access to books.”

“It’s not standard procedure,” the guard argued.

Murdock tilted his head to the side, “I’ll make a note of that,” he said. “Ms. Palamas, have you been held in a bare cell since your… seizure twenty-eight hours ago? Those sort of details can be important to the Civil Rights case.”

“After S.H.I.E.L.D. was disbanded, Secretary, then-General Ross assumed responsibility for administration of their prisoners, correct?” Corrigall asked. “Including this facility... Your supervisor hasn’t returned with the charges against my client yet. It really does make it difficult to work on our case without knowing the charges. The longer it takes you to procure them the more time we have to dedicate to our countersuit against the very existence of this place.”

“Danny?” Hope blurted out as the blond’s familiarity clicked in her mind. “Danny Rand?”

The curly haired blond, glanced around. Spotting her, he grinned. “Hope Pym? Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”

Hope snorted. “How many years have you been waiting to use a line like that?” she asked. “And it’s not Pym, it’s van Dyne.”

“Congrat-” Danny started say but Hope interrupted. “I disowned my father,” she explained. “We’re working on our relationship.”

“Oh,” Danny said. “Um… I’m sorry? Is that what you say.”

Hope shrugged, “Most people don’t say anything. Danny? I- I’d heard about your miraculous return from the dead. But reading it in the news paper and seeing you standing there are worlds apart. What are YOU doing in a place like this?”

“In this case, I’m the muscle,” Danny declared cheerfully. “I’m the Immortal Iron Fist, you know the whole superhero thing? You too I guess, and Tony Stark. Who would have thought?” He glanced at the guards and his smile gained a predatory edge. “Anyway, the lawyers are here to sort out Ms. Kara’s situation according to the laws and regulations of the United States… I’m here to deal with it if we find out that Secretary Ross isn’t playing by the rule book.”

“More importantly you are Daniel Rand, heir of Rand Enterprises, and YOUR lawyers are fully aware of where you are and what to do if you don’t return in a reasonable time period,” Ms. Corrigall corrected pointedly.

“You guys are lawyers?” Scott asked the older pair. “Did they mention how Hope and I haven’t been offered a chance to call our own yet? Since you’re interested in Civil Rights violations and stuff like that?”

“You don’t say?” Meeker said. He took out a notebook. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

Hope smirked, “Actually, since the guard here seem reluctant to let us speak with _our_ lawyers, would you mind contacting Pym Technologies’ legal department on my behalf?”

“It would be our pleasure,” Corrigall replied. “In fact, I could call them for you right now,” she took out her cell phone and smiled at the guard. “Starkphones are known for getting reception everywhere.”

The guard thought about reminding them that cell phones were supposed to have been turned in before they entered the Raft. Instead he walked over the intercom and asked his supervisor, “Do you have an estimate on when we’ll have the charges ready?”

 

* * *

  

Helen Cho hesitated outside the old brownstone apartment building. “I’d appreciate it if you’d wait fifteen minutes,” she told the taxi driver. “This might end rather abruptly.”

“Meter’s running,” the driver warned.

Helen nodded. She wondered if she was overstepping her authority but when J.A.R.V.I.S. had brought up the list of Enhanced whom Tony was monitoring and asked for volunteers to contact them she’d taken one look at the high school yearbook picture that was almost certainly the unmasked Spider-Man and… Well, if it had been her son Helen knew she would have wanted someone to tell her. _‘It’s hard enough being a single parent without other adults conspiring to keep information about your kid from you,’_ she thought.

 

* * *

 

_“Mr. Stark, we believe we found your suspect switching planes in Moscow.”_

In the twelve hours since Leipzig Tony had been scrambling to throw together a team capable of beating the threats they were up against. He’d had  a new set of wings flown in for Wilson from the Tower although there hadn’t been time to repair Red Wing so Sam would be going into the fight already at less than full strength. Vision had spent the last half day in meditation but still seemed less certain than Tony had ever seen him before. Dr. Cho’s cradle could mend May’s cracked ribs and collarbone in a matter of minutes, once she’d been flown to Dr. Cho’s lab.  But the concussion May had suffered had Helen and her assistants threatening to sit on May if that’s what it took to keep her in out of combat for the next few days due to the dangers of second-impact syndrome.

Luke Cage and Jessica Jones had arrived from the US along with Sam’s new wings to bolster the team. They’d been upfront about having a past with each other, Daredevil and Danny Rand both backed up the pair’s assurances that their personal issues wouldn’t get in the way of them working together.

Thor hadn’t come, they were informed that he was been on a mission vital to the security of Asgard but the lovely dark haired, green-eyed Asir seiðkonur who had informed them of Thor’s unavailability volunteered her services in his place. _“You may call me Lady Oili,” the Asir said with a smile that spoke of mischief. “And it would be my honor to settle Prince Thor’s debt. Or perhaps it is my own and the Prince will still owe you when he returns.”_

T’Challa had also joined them. _“Dr. Stark, I am deeply apologetic for my actions in Bucharest,” the young King said, dressed in his battle armor but with the mask removed. “I wish to make amends. I understand how you might be reluctant to trust me in combat against either Steve Rogers or James Barnes so I swear on my personal honor, that I will not engage with them. However, if you find yourself facing this Winter Core that you have warned us of, you might find my skills of use.”_ Tony wasn’t sure if it was time allowing the young king to recollect himself, the growing collection of evidence indicating that Barnes had been framed for the Vienna bombing or T’Challa’s mother’s influence showing, regardless it was a welcome change.

Rescue was there, against Tony’s wishes. _“This is exactly why I wanted my own armor, Tony,” Pepper said sharply. “I don’t want to be an Avenger but more than that I don’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch you get hurt. I can’t live like that.”_ Tony would have liked to say he surrendered gracefully but that would have been a bald faced lie. After a long and loud debate they’d settled on using a wingman system pairing Pepper with T’Challa and both of them held in reserve while Tony teamed up with the suspiciously familiar Lady Oili. Due to lingering concerns about Cage and Jones’ personal history, Cage was paired with Wilson and Jones with Vision.

 _‘We should be more than enough to deal with the five Winter Core soldiers or Steve and his three renegades.’_ Tony thought. _‘But I’d still like to avoid fighting against all nine of them at once. A three way battle could get messy and it’d be just my luck if they all decided WE were the common enemy. Or maybe the PTB don’t hate me and the guy picked up going through Customs will be the real thing. If he is we could cut the Winter Core out of the equation before the action starts.’_

The Head of Airport Security for Sheremetyevo International handed Tony a passport and a pair of boarding passes. “He was trying to make a connecting flight to Yakutsk in Siberia.”

“Sir, the tracker on the Quinjet is also en-route to Siberia,” J.A.R.V.I.S. reported quietly.

“We may have a winner,” Tony declared. “So where is our lucky contestant?”

“He has been detained at the airport to allow you the chance to interrogate him,” the Security officer reported, leading Tony toward a building separate from the terminals. It looked like it had been a warehouse in a previous life.  A heavy chair and steel table had been placed in the middle of the large concrete room.  Maybe-Zemo’s ankles were cuffed the legs of the chair, the handcuffs on his wrists were looped through a ring welded to the table. “Not taking any chances?” Tony asked then walked inside.

For a moment, when Zemo’s eyes lit on Tony his face contorted into fierce scowl then his expression smoothed over. “Mr. Stark, it appears you are falling behind,” Zemo said smugly.

Tony automatically upped the cockiness in his carriage. “Actually, you’re headed straight for jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. From my perspective it looks like the good guys are way ahead of your game.”

Zemo chuckled. “Did you think I actually needed the Winter Soldier to learn the location of the Core? That the base where they were stored was a more closely guarded secret than the words to activate them?”

“So… You’re telling me you went to an awful lot of trouble, bombed the UN, for nothing?” Tony shook his head, “Next you’ll be telling me the War of the Currents was nothing significant.”

“It accomplished less than I hoped but I wouldn’t say for nothing.” Zemo smiled, “Your Colonel Rhodes was felled was he not?”

“Rhodey is going to be just fine,” Tony growled. “You can watch the news of his recovery from you cell.”

“Leipzig was amusing, watching you Avengers tear at each other, so hungry for the chance to stop me that you’d fight each other for it,” Zemo continued. “Although I must admit that I was disappointed that there were no significant injuries there- Although two more Enhanced in Thunderbolt Ross’ hands, I count that a win.”

“Like that's going to stand,” Tony replied. “Hank Pym is a paranoid old coot but he’s a competent paranoid. All I have to do is suggest I’m going to get my hands on his stuff and he’ll blow it up to spite me.”

Zemo ignored Tony, “And how successful do you believe the Captain will be in his self-imposed mission to stop me when he’s already taken _my_ Winter Soldier into his inner circle? The HYDRA brats who brought Ultron into my country are, of course, a lovely bonus. I do hope the news will be courteous enough to splay the pictures of the broken little bodies across the television for me to savor.”

“You lost someone,” Tony realized.

"I lost everyone!" Zemo snapped. “My wife and son lived with my father outside of Novi Grad, far from Strucker’s castle and all of his intrigues. They should have been safe but it was my son’s birthday, he wished to see me so my wife thought it would be a fun surprise for them to drive into the city… Of course that was the day the Avengers came. You didn’t save everyone, you didn’t save them.”

“I’m sorry for them,” Tony said. “For your loss. But blaming a couple of messed up kids for your family's deaths? I’ve looked you up, you commanded EKO Scorpion, a covert kill-squad for the Sokovian government. Do you ever think people like you are the reason why angry idiots like the twins join HYDRA in the first place? I mean, they might blame me for what happened to their parents but it’s people like you who pulled the trigger. And now you’re blaming them because _your_ family got killed? So where does it stop? When everyone’s dead?”

Zemo’s face twisted into an ugly scowl, “Sokovia was a failed state long before I rose through the ranks. I simply lived in the world I was forced to inherit- Until you Avengers destroyed _my_ world. I will stop when _MY_ family’s blood is not the last to be shed. The Winter Core is prepped and ready. I would have preferred to see my revenge with my own eyes but it will proceed apace without my oversight.”

 _‘Never an easy out,’_ Tony sighed to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Zemo’s a liar but lying is not bad communication and he needs to rescue his plan since Tony might opt to just let Steve deal with the Winter Core… And really what are the odds that Zemo couldn’t get the location of the Winter Core from a guy who had Bucky’s trigger words? So flushing Bucky out of hiding and triggering him isn’t so much about Zemo needing the information as Zemo needing Bucky on the gameboard and needing to pass the location of the Siberia Base on to Steve and Tony.


	15. Everyone Hurts

Tony stood in the snow outside the Bunker along with his team. “Remember I’m a genius and hear me out before you tell me I’m an idiot,” he said. 

Lady Oili raised an eyebrow. Jessica glanced over at Pepper and said, “This is going to be good isn’t it?” Pepper nodded.

“Now above all else we don’t want them teaming up against us,” Tony said and recieved general agreement. “So we let them fight the Winter Core. Let them rescue the world from the threat they uncovered… Even if they went about in the most boneheaded way possible… We let them collect those brownie points to weight in against all the bullshit they pulled.”

“Why?” Jessica asked. “I’m ticked off, I let you fly me out to fucking Siberia, it really doesn’t get more middle of nowhere than that. I’m not in a mood to do people favors, especially when they’re mind-warping dumb shits.” 

“Risk management,” Pepper realized. “We let them knock the fight out of each other then wrap up anyone still standing.”

“Works for me,” Luke said. “So where’s the crazy come in?” he asked Tony.

Tony shrugged. “I want to go in alone. Right now it’s four against five. I can even up the numbers and have eyes on to call in the cavalry,” he gestured to the rest of the team, “if things don’t go the way they should.”

“Don’t see how there’s a wrong way for the fight we’re talking about to go,” Jessica said. 

“Wanda and Pietro are minors,” Vision pointed out. “At Leipzig, Wanda indicated to me that she was being harassed. I asked J.A.R.V.I.S. to access the security logs, those which usually bypass him and go straight to ROM, to preserve individual privacy at the compound. What she said was true, an unidentified male was terrorizing the twins.”

“And framing Barnes, setting the world against him? That’s bad for him and pretty much a direct attack on Steve’s sanity,” Sam added. 

“I don’t like being toyed with and that’s what this feels like,” Tony added. “So as mad as I am with him- them- As determined as they seem to be to throw away everything we’ve been working to build, I don’t want them, any of them, dead. So I’ll go in and be there to make sure we’re in position to throw them a rope. Because I’m pretty sure they’re already in over their heads.” Tony sighed, “And maybe afterwards they’ll come in without a big fuss, another big fuss anyway. But I’m not betting on it.”

“I have one modification to this plan,” Lady Oili said.

“Yeah?” Tony asked.

“I can cloak my presence such that even All-Seeing Heimdall cannot see me,” she said. “You will not go in alone. After all, you have named me your shield-mate in this battle.”

* * *

“What do we do now?” Wanda asked staring in morbid fascination at the bodies of the five Winter Soldiers, shot and killed in their cryo-pods and left to rot. 

Steve shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“There was going to be a threat,” Wanda’s voice rose precipitously. “We’d save everyone. We’d be heroes and they’d _like_ us and forget about Lagos and Bucharest and everything would be good. But they’re already dead! There’s nothing here, nothing for us to fight. I hurt Vision! How will can we justify Leipzig when there’s nothing here?!”

“I don’t know,” Steve repeated, frustration showing on his face. “Why would he go to all that trouble? Bombing Vienna. Berlin. Why would he do all that just to kill them?”

Pietro glanced at Bucky. “You said they were HYDRA’s elite death squad. Maybe _this_ was the point. Maybe they had killed someone he loves.” 

Bucky stared at the bodies, each killed with a single shot to the head. “No. If this was point…” He shook his head, “It’s too perfunctory.”

“Then what was the point?” Wanda demanded.

“Good question actually.” 

They all spun to see Tony walk in hands up, faceplate open. 

“Cause I’ve got a vengeful Sokovian in custody who was talking like like you four were walking into a death trap.” As Tony stepped across the threshold a light came on drawing their attention to the back of the room where a small TV and VCR machine was attached to a more modern computer. 

“Now that everyone is here,” Zemo’s voice spoke from the computer. “We should begin.”

“Fuck!” Tony exclaimed as he spotted a visual recognition system aimed at the door. “I’m the target! Get out of here!”

“Damned if I will,” Steve replied stubbornly. He raised his shield and moved closer to Tony.

“I wish I could have been there in person to see your downfall but it seems it is not to be,” Zemo’s recording continued.

Bucky took two steps to the left to put his back to a wall. The muzzle of his rifle came up as he scanned for threats.

“But I will not let my personal satisfaction stand in the way of my plans,” Zemo concluded

As the video started to play Wanda and Pietro pulled closer together.

“I know that road,” Tony said. Almost instantly he knew what he was going to see, knew that he should turn away but he couldn’t. 

From the endless rehashing of Howard and Maria Stark’s deaths after Tony’s presentation at MIT Wanda realized what they were seeing only a few moments after Tony, but none of those recreations of the accident had been anything like this: The gunshot. The car swerving into a tree. The assassin: The Winter Soldier. 

Wanda flinched as Stark’s father pled, “Help my wife.” She glanced at Pietro, wondering if he was also remembering the teenager who’d fought with his parents only a few minutes before their deaths.

The Winter Soldier walked over and dragged Stark’s father up by his hair. “Sergeant Barnes?” Howard asked weakly, identifying his murder. Wanda saw Steve turn away from the screen his eyes go cold and analytical as he switched to watching Tony, as a threat. Wanda clutched at Pietro’s hand as she watched Tony manage to drag his eyes from the screen where the Winter Soldier was brutally beating his father’s skull in only to be confronted with the same man standing barely four feet from him. 

“Howard! Howard!” Tony’s mother called, her voice full of fear and pain. 

“This is wrong,” Wanda heard Pietro mutter as Howard Stark died. “Using this, them. It’s sick. What kind of person does this?”

Bucky turned away from the screen, away from Tony’s accusing gaze. The Winter Soldier walked around the car and reached through the car window, without the faintest hint of emotion he strangled Tony’s mother. Wanda closed her eyes against the sight, she wondered what she’d made Tony see when she’d gone into his mind. She wondered if she were any better, any different from this person who callously turned the murder of Stark’s parents into a weapon against him. She knew she would have killed anyone who had tried to use her parents like this and wondered that Stark hadn’t killed her after what she’d done, that he’d allowed his resources to be used to help her and Pietro even after she’d gone into his mind and and drove red-hot pokers into his worst fears.

The video ended with the bang of a gun aimed directly at the camera. Wanda jerked, she realized she was breathing hard, holding onto Pietro’s hand so tightly that her nails were breaking skin and her bones ached with how hard he was hanging on in turn. It wasn’t the same at all, but it was: The suddenness. The violence. Being left behind, alone in a world that didn’t care. The world had spun on without noticing when her parents died; the world watched with fascination when Tony Stark’s parent died but still it didn’t _care_. Wanda felt her powers rising as she looked at Steve: He called himself a good man but he had watched Stark’s parents die and thought only of how it might affect him. 

Wanda saw Tony, tears running down his face. She didn’t like him but her control was slipping and his grief resonated with hers. He took a step forward as if dragged by pain and anger filling his mind then jerked to a halt as something unseen held him back. Wanda followed Tony’s gaze to the parent-killer and her tenuous control snapped. “Feel what I feel,” she snarled.

* * *

FRIDAY had been relaying the feed from Iron Man’s HUD out to Rescue and the team waiting outside. The moment Pepper recognized Howard and Maria Stark she started running. “Zemo needed Tony there!” she exclaimed as the team fell in behind her. “He’s the trigger for the trap.” 

They broke into the cryo-chamber room just as a wash of red consumed the room and Barnes’ screams filled their ears. 

T’Challa stumbled as his father’s death, already fresh in his mind became so pressing he could feel the weight of his father’s body in his arms. Luke listened numbly as the police officers told him of his wife’s death and at the same time he heard Jessica, the scent of her body still fresh in his mind confessing that it had been her. Sam watched helplessly as Riley fell from the sky. 

Jessica’s mouth tightened into a thin line as the she waded through the red mist, as her allies and enemies dropped around her. Vision put a hand on her shoulder, “After Leipzig, I have taken precautions against Wanda’s power,” he said. “I am with you.” 

“The armor seems to be protecting me,” Pepper added.

“Then let’s find the bitch and put a stop to this,” Jessica growled.

“She is in pain,” Vision protested. 

“She’s not the only one,” Pepper added as another scream from Barnes rent the air. 

A few steps into the room they stumbled across Tony, Oili and Steve. Oili’s hand was locked around Tony’s elbow holding him back but she stared into nothingness muttering, “I am not a monster.” Tony had his forearm missiles primed as he looked around wildly, searching for a target. “Bucky!” Steve shouted, his hand outstretched.

 

“I’m going to try to break them out,” Pepper said.

“Yeah, go ahead and worry about your boyfriend,” Jessica groused.

Pepper flushed but the whole reason she’d asked Tony to make Rescue for her was so that she wouldn’t be helpless when he was in trouble. 

The swirling red mists swallowed Vision and Jessica up after they’d continued on only a few steps leaving Pepper alone with Tony, Oili and Steve. “Tony?” she called. Pepper took two quick steps forward, past his outstretched arm and the pointed missiles. She shook his shoulders, trying to wake him up. 

Tony jerked himself away, pulling his elbow from Oili’s grip as well. “Killian! Stop hiding coward!” he snapped.

“Tony! It’s not real!” Pepper shouted but he didn’t look at her. She took a deep breath, knowing she was doing something stupid but out of options she retracted her faceplate and threw herself at Tony. _Months blurred by for Pepper as hope slowly eroded, images of blood on sand, bodies and a bombed out humvee mixed with moments of sheer terror on a race track, as Iron Man disappeared into a hole in the sky, missiles streaking towards her home, a city rising into the sky and knowing, always knowing that the next moment would inevitably come._ As the memories and feelings of loss tried to take hold Pepper forced herself to concentrate on Tony’s mouth beneath her’s, the smell of grease that always underlaid Tony’s cologne, the feel of her armor around her and the promise it represented: That she’d never be forced to watch helplessly from the sidelines again. 

Then Tony was kissing her back with bruising intensity. “There was a video, Mom, Dad… and then you were falling,” he babbled.

“Wanda,” Pepper explained. “Projecting loss?”

Tony nodded, “Maybe?” He wondered out loud then shouted. “Boy-Twin! Slap your sister or something. She’s causing an area affect!”

Beside them Oili growled, “I am Loki Friggason of Asgard.” A green nimbus pushed the red mist back and both Pepper and Tony sighed in relief as the lingering hold on their minds broke.

“Guessed that,” Tony said, glancing at Oili without ever letting Pepper go. “And dad-problems? But now might not be the time for shocking reveals? We’re all a little tense if you haven’t noticed.”

Lady Oili nodded. “My mind is right again,” she assured them. 

“You didn’t have to hit her so hard!” Vision protested from somewhere deeper within the room.

“Be happy, I snapped the neck the last person to try to get in my head,” Jessica said flatly. 

Oili concentrated for a moment then gestured and pulse of green erupted from her dispersing the Scarlet Witch’s powers. The thinning mists revealed Vision holding Wanda cradled against his chest while he glared at Jessica. Pietro stood beside them still lost in his nightmares. 

Sam shook his head. “Let’s never do that again,” he said as he reached over and shook Luke. The big man blinked but didn’t otherwise respond. 

“Hit him harder?” Jessica suggested. Then to test it, she slapped Pietro across the face with enough strength to stagger him.

Sam shrugged fatalistically. “Here goes nothing,” he said as he drew back his fist and prepared to duck if Luke didn’t snap out of it cleanly. 

Luke caught Sam’s fist inches from his nose, “Not necessary,” he said. Then he grinned, “And next time, slap me? If that had landed you’d have broken your fingers on my teeth.” 

Oili went over to check on Barnes, who was still screaming. Wanda had forced them all to re-experience their worst losses and from what they’d been told of Barnes that meant his entire sense of self. Oili grimaced, _‘I can relate,’_ she thought as she jolted him back to reality was her magic. 

Steve shook himself out of his past and saw Oili leaning over Bucky. “What did you do to him?” he demanded angrily, shifting his grip on his shield in preparation to throw it.

“Yeah, that reminds me,” Tony groaned. “All four of you idiots are under arrest.” He frowned at Steve in particular, “You’ve done more than enough harm and it’s time you answered for it.”

“You’re doing this to punish Bucky,” Steve accused, his memory the train and Bucky’s fall fresh in his mind. “You know it wasn't him, Tony. You know Hydra had control of his mind!”

“So what? He wasn’t in his right mind when he murdered my parents so I’m supposed to let you two walk? You four? Six? More? Do you even remember the people you’re dragging down with you?” Tony demanded, remembering how angry he’d been with Steve for everything that had brought them to this point. 

“Everybody’s upset right now,” Sam said. He stepped between Steve and Tony holding up his hands.

“It wasn't him!” Steve exclaimed.

“Right, there’s my answer,” Tony snorted. “You think you get to walk away after Leipzig?” 

“Sharon attacked us!”

“Guys! Can we all just stand down?” Sam pled.

“So what?” Tony demanded. “He’s your friend, the people he kills don’t matter?”

“Bucky isn’t responsible for killing your parents Tony!”

“And he’s not _responsible_ for JCTC agents who died in Berlin either but they’re still dead at his hands. He’s less than a minute away from being a killing machine and you don’t care!” 

“Could everyone just-“

“That doctor triggered him!”

“Guys-“

“So you ran. You’re Thunderbolt’s wet-dream, you know that right? He wants proof that he’s right and the Enhanced should be kept on a leash and you just keep delivering.”

“Buck-”

“Nobody gives a damn!” Tony roared. “YOUR friend’s in trouble so you burn the world down. Get it straight Cap! That is not being a hero. Nobody cares about your reasons anymore. We could have done this the right way! His case was already being built, but you just had to get involved! You think I want to be here? MY friend’s in the hospital, I want to be with him but, because I’m a grown-up, I don’t get a choice: You’re _killing_ all the good-will Rhodey and I have built up in official circles towards the Avengers, towards Enhanced in general. But you don’t care about that, you’ve never cared about it. I look at history without the Red, White and Blue glasses and it’s easy to see: It was always about YOU getting what YOU wanted: Getting into the army. Going after Barnes. It’s all about YOU You’re NOT a hero! You’re NOT a soldier! You’re just a war bonds salesman with a stage name and-”

“Shut up!” Steve launched himself at Tony, taking Sam out on the way. 

Tony managed to take a quick sidestep away from Pepper before Steve plowed into him, slamming him against the wall. He grinned viciously as he fired his repulsors into Steve’s abdomen to return the favor. “Let’s do this,” he spat as Steve rolled to his feet ready to go again. “You’ve been spoiling for a fight since the day we met. Well, today’s your lucky day: I’ve got nothing more pressing to do. Today you, Steve Rogers, are the self-involved asshole pursuing his own agenda at the cost of the world. Congratulations Captain, today you’re the villain.” 

“I’m a hero!” Steve snarled. “You’re nothing, you’ve never sacrificed, never suffered. Everything’s been handed to you. How could you be a hero!?” He threw the shield and Tony’s faceplate snapped shut. Tony deflected the shield and smashed Steve into the wall again. 

 

Moving on reflexes developed in childhood, Bucky started to bring his weapon to bare on the guy who’d gone after Stevie. Oili grabbed the muzzle of his gun and forced it toward the ceiling with a strength that was belied by her slender frame. “Joining battle against a man whose parents you murdered? Is this not pouring oil on a flame?” she asked.

“But we should stop them, shouldn’t we?” Pietro asked, holding his jaw and glaring at Jessica warily.

Lady Oili watched thoughtfully as Steve and Tony traded blows, “It seems that this is a battle long brewing,” she said. “They aren’t seriously trying to kill each other - yet anyway.”

“Are all of you crazy up in Space-Viking land?” Pepper exclaimed. “Yes, we should break them up!” 

“At times we must show the strength of our conviction by the strength of our blows,” T’Challa declared gravely.

Tony took to the air, trying to get the distance to make his weaponry the definitive factor. Steve shot a jump-line around his neck then jerked him out of the air.

“It escalating,” Pepper said, looking around for support. Vision considered T’Challa and Oili curiously, as he generally did when confronted with new behavior from an organic being. Luke and Jessica looked varying degrees of embarrassed by their lack of disagreement. 

“Wanda and I don’t agree,” Pietro volunteered. “Most of our lives, we were not one of the strong.”

“Not like anybody’s ever _beaten_ sense into Stevie,” Barnes said. “I remember this: He wins a fight it proves he was right. He loses it proves the other guy’s a bully.” 

“You three are suddenly the sane ones?” Pepper muttered eying Barnes and Maximoff twins warily. “Okay, you all heard the Rogers experts. As for Tony, ask Obadiah Stane what happens when you force Tony Stark into a corner, ask the Ten Rings, ask Ivan Vanko. Wait, you can’t. They’re dead. So. Put. A. Stop. To. This. Now.”

Oili sighed. She flicked her fingers and green sparks danced around Tony and Steve as they fought. The battle field blurred, Tony and Steve separated, each pursuing a ghost. “They aren’t corporal,” she warned. “Even a glazing blow and the illusion will shatter.”

“You with me Jones?” Luke asked. Jessica nodded and they both grabbed Steve by an arm. Before he realized what had happened Steve was on the ground, arms twisted behind him and Luke was wrestling cuffs on him, ones designed to withstand enhanced strength.

Vision handed Wanda to Pietro then grabbed Tony from behind and hauled him back, “Sir, that is quite enough,” he said, borrowing J.A.R.V.I.S.’s intonation for a moment. 

“I second that,” Pepper added planting herself in front of Tony.

“Aww Pep, you couldn’t have waited a little longer? One good punch in the kisser?” Tony whined although the teasing tone was contradicted by the darkness in his eyes.

Pepper shook her head. “You’d feel like crap in the morning.

“The rest of you must turn yourselves in as well,” Vision regretfully. “Your actions over these past few days cannot be ignored.”

Barnes nodded. For a moment Pietro looked at the door longingly then sighed and set Wanda down, raising his hands in surrender.


	16. The Trials

The pace of a speedy trial was glacial compared to the pace of a battle. There were only a few days between the bombing in Vienna and the arrests in Siberia- It felt longer for those involved, of course. A few days of near constant motion, of catnaps caught on planes and a few bites scarfed down in hospital waiting rooms felt like an eternity. But then ‘after’ came.

The legal case concerning Kara Palamas’ incarceration was the first to resolve and it took nearly a month to be decided. It could have easily taken longer but elections were coming up and many of the incumbent politicians were pressing to have closure on the Raft situation before trying to get re-elected.

Thaddeus Ross looked like he was sucking on a lemon as he faced Kara in front of a crowd of reporters. “Ms. Palamas, personally and on behalf of the United States’ Government I must apologize for the overzealousness which led to your removal from a secure environment in which you were receiving treatment. After all you had already suffered in the service of your country, that I subjected you to more hardship is something I deeply regret.”

Tony leaned over and whispered, “Scripted,” to Rhodes. The Colonel sat in a wheelchair but Dr. Cho assured him it would only be temporary, until his brain mapped pathways to operate the new muscles and regrown nerves.

Behind the podium Ross paused for a moment.

Kara watched him impassively. Several weeks earlier she’d decided she was comfortable enough with her identity to reclaim her face, or at least to use the photostatic veil fused to her heavily scarred face to recreate her features but expression wasn’t something that came naturally to her anymore, maybe it never had been.

“I hope you will find some measure of peace in knowing that the Raft is being decommissioned,” Ross finished. Then he turned to address the reporters more directly, “Due to my part in these- events. I have tendered my resignation as Secretary of State.”

“The floor is now open for questions.”

There was a some confusion among the reporters afterwards, as to how they should address Ross: General Ross, Secretary Ross, Mr. Ross, who was he now… But most of the questions boil down to one thing: “How worried are you about _your_ upcoming trial?”

“They didn’t find as many human rights abuses on the Raft as we were expecting,” Tony whispered. “Given that it was Ross.”

Rhodes shrugged, “It was about what I was expecting,” he said. “Ross shifted the balance too far in the direction of security. He wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t experimenting on them. He was just too afraid of what his prisoners, what Enhanced peoples are capable of.”

“Ms. Palamas, what will you do now?” one reporter shouted.

Several members of the security team scowled forbiddingly, all the reporters had been warned against questioning Kara but she stepped up to the microphone. “I’m going back to finish the treatment I was undergoing before this started. I’m not safe,” she said bluntly. “HYDRA programmed triggers into my mind to allow them to control me, I need those removed before I can consider being at large. And I’ve only started relearning myself, recovering the memories that were stolen from me. It’s much too early to talk about what I’ll do once I’m well again. But I have confidence that I _will_ be well again someday.”

Maria Hill was watching the press conference from her office at the Avengers’ Compound when her phone rang.

“It’s not just what she did under HYDRA’s control,” Phil Coulson said. “Palamas continued coming after my people _after_ she broke their conditioning.”

“So you admit you know her name now?” Hill replied a bit snidely. Then she shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter does it? Given all the trouble you went to to avoid officially existing it’s not like you can press charges. Didn’t you realize that there would drawbacks as well as benefits to being outside of the law Phil? You’ve made your bed so don’t come whining to me about how the sheets are too starchy.”

* * *

There weren’t any public apologies after Scott Lang and Hope Pym’s joint trial. The kidnapping charges, due to their role in removing the Maximoff twins from the Avengers Compound don’t stick but only because of a holdout on the jury. They each receive two years of house arrest for their role in the battle of Leipzig-Halle. _“It’s all a pretext to get their hands on my particles,” Hank Pym insisted._

The outcome of the trial was pushed off the front pages almost immediately by Tony Stark’s announcement that Iron Man would be taking on a mentoring roll to a super-powered teenager. Because he was a minor it was decided that Spider-Man’s identity would be withheld from the public, _“Until he finishes schooling,” Tony insisted. “The last thing we need to do is have the crazies targeting schools.”_ SI’s legal department made an example of the first journalist caught trying to uncover Spider-Man’s real name. Tony and Pepper knew it wouldn’t put a stop to other from trying but they hoped it would discourage them long enough to get protective measures in place around Peter and May Parker for when it inevitably did come out. 

After the criminal case against Ant-Man and Wasp concluded several airlines brought civil suits against Pym Technologies for the damage to their businesses. The civil charges were expected to result in massives fine but there wasn’t enough drama to it to draw more than passing public interest. _“We don’t have time for this nonsense, we have to rescue your mother!” Hank growled._

After one of Cassie Lang’s teachers overheard Cassie referring to police as ‘pigs’, the school strongly counseled Maggie to stop allowing Cassie to spend the weekends with her father. Maggie left the meeting in a huff and humming “Harper Valley PTA”. No one said it was connected but after that Maggie’s offers to volunteer at the school were firmly declined and the following spring Jim Paxton found himself overlooked for promotion at the police department. Only two parents allowed their children to come to Cassie’s birthday party that year.

Two months into Hope’s house arrest she vanished along with Hank Pym and Pym Technologies itself, building and all.

 

* * *

 

 

Eighteen months after Siberia Wanda and Pietro embraced as they met up in front of the juvenile detention centered they’d been reprimanded to following their arrest. For the entire period their powers were firmly repressed. _‘The worst part was only seeing Pietro in our joint counseling sessions,’_ Wanda thought as she squeezed her brother as tightly as she could.

They collected the few personal effects they’d had then stepped outside and looked around. “Was someone going to pick us up?” Pietro asked. “We could get in more trouble if we leave on our own, right?”

Before Wanda could answer the door of a flashy car open, “Are you coming or not,” Tony called.

The twins glanced at each other in surprise. During the year they had lived at the Compound they’d rarely even seen Tony Stark, let alone spoken to him. They scrambled into the backseat of the car just in case Tony changed his mind about giving them a ride.

Pietro frowned at the man in the passenger seat and blurted out, “Aren’t you _his_ driver?”

Happy shook his head mournfully, “You’d think Iron Man would be enough thrills for anyone but he still grabs the keys first.”

At that a light lit up in Pietro’s eyes. “The top comes down, yes?” he asked Tony.

Tony laughed. As the roof on the convertible folded itself away, he hit the gas and the car peeled out of the parking lot. Pietro sat up straighter and grinned madly as the wind rushed by. “You are crazy,” Wanda told her brother. She clutched her seatbelt as Tony took a corner much too fast, “You are all crazy!” she amended.

“What’d I do?” Happy demanded.

“Let him drive!” Wanda exclaimed.

“Does it go faster?” Pietro asked.

“Let’s see,” Tony replied.

Eventually they hit traffic and Tony had to slow down to something that resembled the speed limit. Pietro slumped in his seat a bit. “I only had them, my powers, for a few years. I didn’t think I’d miss them so much,” he said.

“We’re allowed to deactivate the restraints for training, reluctantly allowed by the courts,” Tony said. “Eventually, once you’re older, when something comes along where you’d be useful- We’ll make an argument that you should be allowed to make amends for your pasts and if it’s the right situation they’ll buy in. For now, until things change, your powers are to be restricted, even in the Compound.”

Wanda knew it would have been easy, once, to blame Tony Stark for the hardships in her life but looking back, she’d learned: First, that she didn’t like what blaming him had led her to become. And later, after she’d started trying to move past her trauma and her anger, that she’d attributed a truly ridiculous degree of power and of malice to Tony, assigning him a role in her life that bore no relationship with reality. She didn’t want to be that person anymore. “It’s less than what we could have expected, given the airport.”

Tony’s shoulders relaxed. “It’s not all bad news. Lady Oili, the Aesir sorceress who was with us in Siberia, she agreed to play Professor McGonagall for you. Can’t hurt to get a better handle on your magic right? And you’ll both have a little more company your own age around the Compound: You might have heard the news, there’s another kid training with the Avengers with the Avengers these days plus this didn’t make the news but I’ve got two teenage non-combatants who love computers and tech, I let them take over the training equipment and see if they can come up with a challenge for the team once or twice a month.”

Wanda and Pietro looked at each other, “Will they like us?” Wanda asked hesitantly. “Everyone at the Detection Center seemed to hate us. They were always eyeing the limiters like they thought…” She trailed off for a moment. “It was as if they thought the limiters were the only things keeping us from killing them all.”

“These kids aren’t going to be afraid of you,” Tony assured her. “Oh, and one more teenager: Princess Shuri’s around every now and then but you won’t see much of her outside of the labs.” He grinned, “That girl’s got _promise_ as a mad scientist!”

 

* * *

 

 

It took several months before a group of reporters managed to corner Shuri as she left the Avengers Compound, “Princess Shuri, can you tell us why King T’Challa offered Sgt. Barnes Wakanda’s aid?”

“It makes my brother feel less guilty about being a dumbass and going after him with only some circumstantial evidence and a whole lot of mad,” Shuri replied frankly, ignoring her bodyguard’s attempt to hustle her away. “But given all the work Doctors Cho and Ross have already done in adapting Tony Stark’s B.A.R.F., I absolutely love that name, to treat Ms. Palamas it was the perfect excuse for me to collaborate with them, so I don’t mind doing all the work for T’Challa’s mea culpa. I’m amazed by Dr. Cho’s cradle and how much the scientists in S.U.D.D.S. have accomplished without access to Vibranium.”

“Will there be future scientific collaborations between Wakanda and the rest of the world?”

Shuri nodded eagerly, “Yes, definitely. Tony and I became online acquaintances while working to stop Ultron and I’d love to science with him in person but obviously not on a project involving Sgt. Barnes. If the Winter Soldier had actually killed my father rather than only been accused of doing so I wouldn’t be working on this project either…. Also my colleagues back home would totally call nepotism if I were the only one allowed to seek out collaboration with outside researchers. Wakanda is a small country and much of the scientific advancement is centered in one tribe. It’s so cool to be able to work openly with people who think differently from us.”

“Does this mean Wakanda will also be offering aid to Romania for the damage done in the running battle between Steve Rogers and T’Challa?” a different reporter shouted.

“He should, shouldn’t he?” Shuri remarked before being manhandled into a waiting car by her guard.

“You remember the phrase ‘no comment’?” the bodyguard was heard to mutter as she climbed in after the youthful princess-researcher.

Steve Rogers watched the interview from a prison. While the news pundits went on speculate about what Princess Shuri’s comment about being ‘able to work openly’ with people outside Wakanda might imply and whether or not the sixteen-year-old’s unscripted comments could be used by Romania as leverage as they continued to try to press Wakanda for damages, Steve just wished Shuri had said more about what was happening to Bucky.

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha felt a cold wind blow through the cell she’d been confined to since Bucharest and quickly rolled off her bunk to kneel. _‘Finally’_ she thought as a wisened, old man with greyish-blue skin stepped out of a swirling portal into her cell.

The man chuckled, his voice would have instantly been familiar to the Maximoff twins, “I can hear you thinking Natalia Alianovna Romanova: How, without your information, without you encouraging the Captain to create flashpoints, Helmut Zemo’s plans would have died stillborn… Need I remind you that Thanos doesn’t truly need this planet’s defenses weakened to defeat it?”

“But you wanted it done,” Natasha dared, not raising her eyes from the floor.

“I am the cautious one, always… And it has served me well,” the old man admitted. A sly grin creased his weathered face, “I deem that you have upheld our bargain: For your efforts half the human race will be spared. And you will be among the survivors.”

“I can do more,” Natasha argued. “I - I can- You said Thanos’ goal is resource management. I know nothing of the rest of the galaxy, but on Earth resource consumption is not evenly distributed. I can provide information, Thanos doesn’t _have_ to kill half of us to halve the resources used, in fact he could _fail_ to significantly alter anything without proper information. I could save more lives, just let me gather the information for you. Let me out of here.”

Natasha felt spindly fingers comb through her hair, as if she were a pet, “If Thanos has further need you of you, my dear… I’ll know where to find you,” he said. And then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea of Ebony Maw as described in 616: a manipulator first and foremost. Earth is largely isolated from the rest of the galaxy, Natasha has no way of knowing that it’s Thanos SOP to kill half of a planet’s population. She doesn’t believe the Earth can prevail against Thanos, so Maw is able to convince her that she really is securing half the population’s survival in the face of an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. After all, Thanos isn’t going to stop and opposing him will, according to what she’s been led to believe, only get the entire human race wiped out.


End file.
